Opening the Bag of Mortgage Tricks

Opening the Bag of Mortgage Tricks
By GRETCHEN MORGENSON
Published: December 18, 2010

ALL the revelations this year about dubious practices in the mortgage servicing arena — think robo-signers and forged signatures — have rightly raised borrowers’ fears that companies handling their loans may not be operating on the up and up.

But borrowers aren’t the only ones concerned about potential mischief. Investors who hold mortgage securities are increasingly worried that servicers may be putting their interests ahead of those who own the loans.

A servicer might, for example, deny a loan modification to a borrower because it also owns a second mortgage on the same property and doesn’t want to write down that asset, as required in a modification. Levying outsize default fees is another tactic — the fees typically go to the servicer, not the lender, but they can still propel a property into foreclosure more quickly. And foreclosures aren’t a good outcome for investors.

Last week, a jury in federal district court in Reno, Nev., awarded a group of 50 mortgage investors $5.1 million in punitive damages against defendants in a loan servicing case. Although the numbers in the case aren’t large, its facts are fascinating. Indeed, the case exposed some of the tricks of the servicers’ trade.

The case is also notable because the main defendant, Silar Advisors, was one of the institutions that struck a deal in 2009 with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation to buy the assets of a notorious failed bank, IndyMac. Of the $5.1 million in damages awarded in the case, Silar must pay $3 million.

John W. Bickel II, a co-founder of Bickel & Brewer in Dallas, represented the investors in the case. Because he represents an additional 1,450 investors whose loans were serviced by Silar, he said more suits like this one would follow soon.

Loan servicers act as intermediaries between borrowers and their lenders, collecting monthly payments and real estate taxes and forwarding them to the appropriate parties. As long as borrowers meet their payments, such operations typically run smoothly.

Defaults and foreclosures, however, complicate servicers’ duties. As the Silar matter shows, borrower difficulties also open the door to improprieties.

Because loan servicers operate behind the scenes, it’s hard for investors who own these mortgages to monitor fee-gouging. In addition, the servicing contracts make it difficult to fire administrators — under a typical arrangement, investors holding at least 51 percent of the loans must agree on termination.

In short, loan servicing is a perfect setup for administrators who want to take advantage of both borrowers and lenders.

Troubles for investors in the Silar matter began back in 2006 when the USA Commercial Mortgage Company went bankrupt. Founded in 1989, the company had underwritten and serviced short-term commercial real estate loans. It sold them to private investors, typically older people who hoped to live off the income generated by the loans. At the time of its bankruptcy, USA Commercial serviced 115 loans worth almost $1 billion.

After the company collapsed, a small firm called Compass Partners bought the servicing rights to these assets for $8 million. A short time later, Silar Advisors, a company overseen by Robert Leeds, a former Goldman Sachs executive, got involved by financing Compass. Compass/Silar began servicing the loans for the investors.

Almost immediately, the plaintiffs in the suit contended, Compass/Silar started siphoning off money owed to investors holding the loans. Among the servicer’s tactics, the plaintiffs said, were improperly charging default interest, late fees and loan origination fees that reduced amounts due to investors.

The investors also said that when borrowers tried to pay off or otherwise resolve defaulted loans, Compass/Silar refused to negotiate. In other cases when Compass/Silar urged the investors to modify troubled mortgages, the servicer reaped undisclosed fees in the deals.

THE jury affirmed every claim the plaintiffs had brought against Compass/Silar, including conspiracy, as well as breach of contract, of fiduciary duty, and of good faith and fair dealing. The jury found improper actions by Compass/Silar on eight loans.

A Silar spokesman said the firm was pleased that the jury awarded only $79,000 in compensatory damages to the plaintiffs but was disappointed by the punitive-damages assessment. “The jurors are to be commended for their careful consideration of the facts in a very lengthy trial,” the spokesman said. He declined to comment as to whether Silar was currently servicing any loans.

One loan history, on a defaulted asset known as Standard Property, indicates what these investors were up against with their servicer.

In March 2007, immediately after Compass/Silar took over administration of the investors’ loans, the Standard Property mortgage had a principal value of $9.64 million. The borrower wanted to repay the loan at that time, but instead of directing it to pay principal and the accrued interest to the holder of the loan, as required by the servicing agreement, Compass/Silar arranged for the borrower to refund only the principal.

At the same time, court papers show, Compass/Silar quietly took in almost $860,000 in late fees, default interest and other costs from the Standard Property borrower. This ran afoul of the servicing agreement governing the Standard Property mortgage. The agreement stated that such fees could go to the servicer only after investors had been paid principal and accrued interest on a loan.

“No one really knows what is in the black box known as loan servicing, and most investors don’t even think of their servicer taking advantage of them,” Mr. Bickel said in an interview. “There’s not a lot of transparency, and I think this case is going to bring to the forefront the potential for abuse.”

It is obvious that we are in the litigation stage of the financial debacle of 2008. That usually means shining the light on dark corners and watching what scurries away. The view may not be pretty, but at least in this case, investors got some recompense in addition to an education.