Testimony in a New Jersey bankruptcy court case provides proof of the scenario we’ve depicted on this blog since September, namely, that subprime originators, starting sometime in the 2004-2005 timeframe, if not earlier, stopped conveying note (the borrower IOU) to mortgage securitization trust as stipulated in the pooling and servicing agreement. Professor Adam Levitin in his testimony before the House Financial Services Committee last week described what the implications would be:

If mortgages were not properly transferred in the securitization process, then mortgage-backed securities would in fact not be backed by any mortgages whatsoever. The chain of title concerns stem from transactions that make assumptions about the resolution of unsettled law. If those legal issues are resolved differently, then there would be a failure of the transfer of mortgages into securitization trusts, which would cloud title to nearly every property in the United States and would create contract rescission/putback liabilities in the trillions of dollars, greatly exceeding the capital of the US’s major financial institutions…. Recently, arguments have been raised in foreclosure litigation about whether the notes and mortgages were in fact properly transferred to the securitization trusts. This is a critical issue because the trust has standing to foreclose if, and only if it is the mortgagee. If the notes and mortgages were not transferred to the trust, then the trust lacks standing to foreclose… If the notes and mortgages were not properly transferred to the trusts, then the mortgage-backed securities that the investors’ purchased were in fact non-mortgage-backed securities. In such a case, investors would have a claim for the rescission of the MBS, meaning that the securitization would be unwound, with investors receiving back their original payments at par (possibly with interest at the judgment rate). Rescission would mean that the securitization sponsor would have the notes and mortgages on its books, meaning that the losses on the loans would be the securitization sponsor’s, not the MBS investors, and that the securitization sponsor would have to have risk-weighted capital for the mortgages. If this problem exists on a wide-scale, there is not the capital in the financial system to pay for the rescission claims; the rescission claims would be in the trillions of dollars, making the major banking institutions in the United States would be insolvent.

As we indicated back in September, it appeared that Countrywide, and likely many other subprime orignators quit conveying the notes to the securitization trusts sometime in the 2004-2005 time frame. Yet bizarrely, they did not change the pooling and servicing agreements to reflect what appears to be a change in industry practice. Our evidence of this change was strictly anecdotal; this bankruptcy court filing, posted at StopForeclosureFraud provides the first bit of concrete proof. The key section:

As to the location of the note, Ms. DeMartini testified that to her

knowledge, the original note never left the possession of Countrywide, and that

the original note appears to have been transferred to Countrywide’s foreclosure

unit, as evidenced by internal FedEx tracking numbers. She also confirmed

that the new allonge had not been attached or otherwise affIXed to the note.

She testified further that it was customary for Countrywide to maintain possession of

the original note and related loan documents.

This is significant for two reasons: first, it points to pattern and practice, and not a mere isolated lapse. Second, Countrywide, the largest subprime originator, reported in SEC filings that it securitized 96% of the loans it originated. So this activity cannot be defended by arguing that Countrywide retained notes because it was not on-selling them; the overwhelming majority of its mortgage notes clearly were intended to go to RMBS trusts, but it appears industry participants came to see it as too much bother to adhere to the commitments in their contracts.

As one hedge fund investor noted, “Whenever we’ve gotten into situations on the short side, no matter how bad we think it is, it always proven to be worse.” The mortgage securitization mess looks to be adhering to this script.