News Topic: CreditSlips

As challenges to whether a "bank" (usually actually a securitized trust) has the right to foreclose because it owns the note and mortgage become more common, rumors swirl about the ability to use such tactics to get a "free house." ... Read full article

I am sad to report that my co-author, and recent Credit Slips guest blogger, Sarah Woo of NYU recently passed away after a long illness. She was one of the few who easily bridged the devide between banking and bankruptcy, and will be missed. ... Read full article

From the public signals, it seems as thought the President and Democratic leadership are trying to reach a reasonable deal with the GOP, but are ultimately determined to avoid a default on US debt or ratings downgrade no matter what the price. ... Read full article

Following our prison visit in clinic this past week, we promised to report on a brand new (to us) scam, one involving a company that helps people “find” payday lenders. My student Bridget Mullins reports on it here. ... Read full article

Once or twice a year, students from the University of New Mexico School of Law Clinic visit a women’s prison to provide brief legal services to those incarcerated there. We always assumed most of  inmates’ questions dealt with family law, so my group, the ... Read full article

This past week we were lucky to be edified by guest blogger Professor Daniel Schwarcz from the University of Minnesota School of Law. I bet Daniel is a great teacher. I mean, the guy can make insurance interesting, if not downright scandalous! ... Read full article

Many thanks to Credit Slips for providing me with the opportunity to discuss some of the key consumer protection issues in insurance regulation.  As I hope I have shown over my short stint here, there is much that needs to be done in this important area, ... Read full article

The Obama Administration is finally goosing HAMP to try to deal with unemployment. Gosh, how long has that taken? The Congressional Oversight Panel was all over the need to do this starting in 2009, but the Administration was so wed to HAMP that it ... Read full article

The Obama adminstration's CFPB proposal took a lot of flak (and almost cratered) because of the inclusion of the "plain vanilla" provision (from the work of Profs. Michael Barr, Sendhil Mullainathan, and Eldar Shafir), which would have ... Read full article

Prompted by several comments to one of my earlier posts , I've been thinking about situations where a homeowner files an insurance claim for property damage to her home while she is in default on her mortgage.  The general practice, as I understand ... Read full article

I’ve argued in my posts so far that transparency in property/casualty insurance markets is woefully inadequate.  Transparency, however, is not always a particularly good solution to a regulatory problem. The most visible controversy in the ... Read full article

A pair of very interesting foreclosure rulings were handed down today by the Nevada Supreme Court. They provide further evidence that documentation problems are rife in the mortgage industry, including documents showing chain of title. They also provide ... Read full article

Eric Rasmusen of Indiana University and I were having a back channel communication on the U.S. Supreme Court's holding Stern v. Marshall ( see here for a summary ). ... Read full article

Media reports have recently focused on big banks spontaneously offering mortgage modifications, even including principal reduction, to borrowers who are not in default and who haven’t even asked for them. See here .  The banks mentioned, JPMorgan Chase ... Read full article

I have an op-ed on the Durbin Amendment rulemaking in the American Banker .   ... Read full article

Insurance nerds like to point out that insurance coverage is a pre-requisite to a wide range of activities, from starting a business to practicing medicine to driving a car.  In this sense, insurers often serve as gatekeepers to fundamental social ... Read full article

Not surprisingly, one of the core consumer protection issues in insurance is ensuring that carriers pay claims fairly and expeditiously.  Unlike many contracts, insurance policies are sequential and contingent: whereas the policyholder performs routinely ... Read full article

Following is a call for papers to be presented as part of the section program at the Association of American Law Schools Annual Meeting next January. ... Read full article