CreditSlips

HARP's Dirty Little Secret: Most HARP Refis are of Positive Equity Mortgages

11/29/11

So the Administration has announced that it is expanding the HARP refinancing program to help underwater borrowers.  Originally, HARP enabled borrowers with up to 125% loan-to-value (LTV) ratios to refinance (105% for adjustable rate loans).  The revised program removes the LTV cap for fixed-rate loans, reduces some refi fees, permits refis of loans that have been mildly delinquent recently, and extends the eligibility date.

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Kindle and ePub Versions of Bankruptcy Code

11/23/11

One of my crack research assistants, Scott Cromar, put together electronic versions of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code and Federal Rules of Bankruptcy Procedure (FRBP) that can be read using Amazon Kindle or an ePub reader. Because these books were assembled using public-domain materials from the U.S. government, we are making them available free of charge. Keep reading after the page break for links and more information.

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Ironies of the Legal Profession?

11/20/11

Funny to see the juxtaposition in the New York Times of a piece berating law schools for the irrelevance of their curriculum and then a piece about our former co-blogger Elizabeth Warren, a law professor whose work can be called anything but irrelevant (unless you think conceiving and standing up a new gove

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Soured on Saurman

11/18/11

Elected justice moves swiftly. The Michigan Supreme Court handed down its opinion in Residential Funding Co. v. Saurman on Wednesday, a couple of weeks after oral argument. They were in a rush to get the opinion out, it seems. Unfortunately, it's a terrible opinion.

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The Heirs of Karl Lleywellyn: the PEB Report, Green Cheese, and the Hijacking of American Law (Part III)

11/18/11

As I noted in the previous posts on this thread (here and here), I think the Permanent Editorial Board for the UCC's

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The Heirs of Karl Lleywellyn: the PEB Report, Green Cheese, and the Hijacking of American Law (Part I)

11/18/11

This last week the Permanent Editorial Board of the Uniform Commercial Code came out with a report bering the none-too-thrilling title of "Report on Application of the Uniform Commercial Code to Selected Issues Related to Mortgage Notes". There's an awful lot to say about this awful document, and I'm not going to attempt to cover it all in a single blog post.

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Is Bank of America Gambling on Resurrection (or Is BoA Holding the US Hostage)?

11/16/11

What would you do if you were running an insolvent company? The smart thing is to bet big:  go with a high-risk/high-return strategy.  If the gamble pays off, you're solvent, and if not, well, you're already insolvent.  You're playing with the creditors' money. (And without a tort of deepening insolvency, there really isn't a clear downside for management.)  This is gambling on resurrection.  

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Corzine's $12 million

11/15/11

I know this is a bit tardy, but I've been meaning to post on this. A couple weeks ago, the media were making a big deal about Jon Corzine renouncing the $12 million in severance he is owed by MF Global. But he isn't.  He's walking away from a $12 million general unsecured bankruptcy claim (as far as I can tell he's not secured) against an entity that looks to be deeply insolvent.

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Is Fraudulent Transfer in Joe Paterno's Playbook?

11/15/11

No, fraudulent transfer isn't a fancy football term for a fake handoff.  That's a bootleg.  Instead, it's what you call a bs transfer of an asset to avoid creditors or when you are or are about to be rendered insolvent. And it looks like it might be part of Joe Paterno's playbook.

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