Chain of Title

How Three Ordinary Americans Uncovered Wall Street's Great Foreclosure Fraud

By: David Dayen

Narrated by: Kaleo Griffith

In the depths of the Great Recession, a cancer nurse, a car dealership worker, and an insurance fraud specialist helped uncover the largest consumer crime in American history - a scandal that implicated dozens of major executives on Wall Street. They called it foreclosure fraud: Millions of families were kicked out of their homes based on false evidence by mortgage companies that had no legal right to foreclose.

Lisa Epstein, Michael Redman, and Lynn Szymoniak did not work in government or law enforcement. They had no history of anticorporate activism. Instead they were all foreclosure victims, and while struggling with their shame and isolation they committed a revolutionary act: closely reading their mortgage documents, discovering the deceit behind them, and building a movement to expose it.

Fiscal Times columnist David Dayen recounts how these ordinary Floridians challenged the most powerful institutions in America armed only with the truth - and for a brief moment, they brought the corrupt financial industry to its knees.

©2016 David Dayen (P)2016 Audible, Inc.

Totally Unbelievable, Except It Happened

Any additional comments?

I was captured by the stories told and amazed and saddened by how broken the systems are that are supposed to prevent all of this and get justice for those that suffer through these crimes. The book has places that list a lot of legal type details that did drone on in this audio version - I would likely have skipped over those details if I was reading this book. I will say that I have gone back and reviewed my own mortgage documents.

Still relevant information!

This is a book every person in America should read or listen to! It’s highly detailed and a lot to digest at times but I found it quite riveting! I’m absolutely gobsmacked that the banking system industry in collusion with the courts and the federal government committed such blatant fraud against American homeowners! Unfortunately, the banks have never really paid for the foreclosure fraud they committed and the courts still tend to side with them! This information is priceless! Make sure your kids read it! With the current administration intent on dismantling the consumer protection bureau, I can only surmise that the banks and the servicing industry could possibly continue this type of fraud. If you get a foreclosure notice please do your due diligence and don’t panic! If the chain of title can’t be proven you can fight it! Read/listen to this book and get a good attorney!!! Banks use/used robo-signers and document mills and fake affidavits and fake notaries! It just goes on and on! I feel so sorry for the homeowners who lost their homes in the crisis and those who committed suicide over it! Good luck and please be careful in your home buying!

Thank you

The Truth is always the best Entertainment. Heartbreak is sometimes just down the block. There but for the Grace of God shall go I.

Every American must read this book before voting.

This book shows how wealth and power circumvent the legal system and how the legislatures made it easier for financial institutions to foreclose on loans they did not make and lost no actual money on. It shows how vindictive they were in getting their way, foreclosing and wasting the assets. It's socialism for wall street and libertarianism for people.

Great telling of a frustrating story

In the rush of information from a 24-hour news cycle it's difficult to hold on to the small cumulative facts that stream by as part of a major news story. There's a shortage of long-form journalism, either in print or in broadcasting, that can bring an event into full and unflinching focus. That's where a book like Chain of Title is especially valuable.

David Dayen places three "ordinary Americans" in the center of this book about the housing/banking crisis of 2007-2008. The most powerful character in the book is Lisa Epstein. Like millions of other Americans, Epstein was a victim of the banks. She worked as a nurse, was careful with her money, invested carefully in a house she could afford, and after marrying bought a new home with her husband. While she never missed a payment she found herself in a legal battle over foreclosure.

Lisa noticed irregularities in the notices that she was receiving and became obsessed with researching both the laws and bank practices surrounding foreclosure. The things she found would give any homeowner with a mortgage nightmares, and were the cause of millions of people losing their homes ... the largest loss of wealth in American history ... even for those who had never missed a payment in their lives.

Among other practices she found a banker-created clearinghouse for shifting titles outside the control of county records that regulated property titles for the whole of the country's history. She discovered foreclosure mills in which employees holding notary seals would forge the signatures of bank officers and then notarize the documents. She found lenders who were foreclosing on homes without having any financial interest in the property.

The book details Epstein's obsessive research and her efforts to try to get action from the US Department of Justice and the judges making the rulings on foreclosures. She and another of the book's major personalities, Michael Redman, join forces to try to educate homeowners through a website on their basic rights while collecting as much evidence as possible.

It's almost as frustrating and terrifying to read as it must have been for those finding themselves homeless without having done anything wrong. It would be nice to say that the work of Epstein and others helped solve the problem. Instead, Dayen details the inaction of Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and his ability to convince Obama that the issue was not a danger to the banking industry (as if it were the only important player). He tells of the Department of Justice closing down the one working team that picked up the investigation and running the investigators out of their jobs. He covers the slow conversion of judges and attorneys dealing with foreclosure, where history left them with the presumption that the banks didn't lie and anyone facing foreclosure was clearly guilty with no evidence provided. And, finally, he describes the total failure to act by Congress, either by refusing to pass remedial legislation or refusing to fund programs that did pass. This is an indictment of the banking system but it's also an indictment of a legal system unwilling or unable to adapt to benefit voters over contributors.

If you read it like I did you may find your jaw tired from grinding your teeth at the end of the day. It isn't easy to read about people being railroaded out of their rightful property by greedy swine at the trough, and then blamed for the theft as people wanting a free handout. Still, knowledge is power. This is the kind of book that can fuel the fire needed for change. If you find yourself wondering why you should bother about the next election this book will give you the reason.

Shocking travesty of justice

It is an unbelievable tale, and is all the more disheartening that many of the practices outlined in this book continue to this day. Something is really broken in the US legal system when judges allow these injustices

Covering up the twisting of minds and emotions...

A well told accurate story. Clearly narrated to captivate the listener about the details of corrupt mortgages and foreclosure fraud absurdities. These three very different people worked so hard and persistently because they believed in integrity. They highlight critical information that everyone must know to protect their lives from blatantly shielded acts of fraud. They explain what I could not, even though I could see how the fraud was emerging. It was never about "the house." For me, it was about having to "pay" for shame and crazy while living life into destruction. No happy ending but this book tells my story. Phew!

Interesting but too long

This book starts so well. It is an interesting look at the housing crisis of 15 years ago, much through the eyes of some victims who did research and fought it. The level of fraud is shocking. I cared about these people and their situations. I learned a lot early, but then the book got overly technical, less personal, and overly repetitive. After listening to the first half, I jumped ahead to the end, and it felt like I did not lose much. Lots of good stuff here, but the book needed a more aggressive editor. It should have been half the length.

important book

There are a lot of details and it's a sad story about where our bankocracy is at. This book is important if you want to understand the aftermath of the 2008 meltdown. Obama could have easily stopped this but he didn't. The Democratic party need look no further than this to understand why they are losing at all levels of government.

Infuriating Account

I found this to be a fascinating book. David Dayen tells the story of three Florida homeowners as they discover that banks have been lying about signatures. Lisa Epstein, a nurse, learns that the bank foreclosing on her could not prove it had legally obtained the loan. Lisa met Michael Redman, a car salesman, and encouraged him to published an online guide as to how to find information online about who had the loan on their homes. The two of them connected with Lynn Szymoniak, an attorney, who investigated the signature in her own foreclosure action and found one with a date when the signor was actually in State Prison.

The book is well written and meticulously researched. Dayen skillfully narrates a slow reveal of fraud and uses some interesting metaphors. Dayen reveals the mechanics of the foreclosure business in an easy to understand way. The book reads like a fast-paced thriller instead of non-fiction book. I am not an expert in banking/mortgages so I cannot tell if the author is calling mistakes or process weakness fraud or if what he describes is actually deliberate fraud. Because the process was so widespread and there was a cover-up used, my inclination is to agree with the author that it was widespread fraud by the banking industry. If it is the later, why are these big bankers not in jail? This is an excellent book about the collapse of the housing bubble.

The book is fourteen hours long. Kaleo Griffith does an excellent job narrating the book. Griffith is an actor and multi-award-winning audiobook narrator.