Page 13 - Ohio Vol 4 No 6
P. 13

MARC DANN | Opinion
Evidence of Spiraling Financial Regulation Ful ll
My Predictions
Like most attorneys, I’ve spent sleepless nights worrying about what will happen if the phones go
silent or clients stop coming through the o ce door.
Fortunately, DannLaw has been ex- tremely busy lately. Unfortunately, the in ux of clients hasn’t relieved my in- somnia. Now I’m up agonizing about the future of our country.
 at’s because the factors that are driving my intakes up threaten to drag the United States down – lax or nonexistent regulation of the  nancial markets, rollback of consumer pro- tection laws, exploding student loan debt, and an uptick in home foreclo- sures are the seamy underbelly of an economy that appears to be booming.
But just as steadily rising home val- ues masked the home mortgage bub- ble, strong economic indicators are cloaking the fundamental weaknesses that are fueling both growth in my practice and my growing fear that the United States is headed for trouble.
I’ve written repeatedly that the on- going assault on the regulatory frame- work that restored sanity and stability to the  nancial markets a er the near- collapse of the economy in 2007-2008 was extremely dangerous. I take no pleasure in saying my predictions have been accurate, even though they’re bolstering my bottom line.
In case someone thinks I’m stoking hysteria or spreading fake news, con- sider this:
Wells Fargo recently announced that a so ware “glitch” caused the company to erroneously deny loan modi cations to 625 borrowers, 400 of whom lost their homes.  e bank hid the error for eight years and of- fered ridiculously low compensation packages to the people whose lives were destroyed by the error. Given the bank’s sordid history, I don’t believe
for a minute that only 625 borrowers were impacted by the error.
 e response to an item we posted on Facebook about the incident vali- dates my skepticism. Within hours our phones blew up, the post was liked and/or shared more than 700 times, and numerous people post- ed comments detailing the ways in which the company had abused them. We’ve signed up a number of clients and are preparing to  le RESPA and other claims against the bank.
 e response from state and federal regulators ... crickets. Which is un- surprising given that the current ad- ministration and congressional ma- jorities have made rolling back over- sight a priority.  e lack of action and reaction to the latest Wells scandal sends a clear message to the banking/ credit industry: it’s once again open season on borrowers.
 ings are even worse in the stu- dent loan world. What had been a troubling growth in indebtedness has now become a full-blown crisis be- cause both the Department of Educa- tion and the Consumer Financial Pro- tection Bureau decided to throw bor- rowers to the wolves.  e situation is so bad that Seth Frotman, the CFPB’s student loan ombudsman quit. In a letter to the CFPB’s acting director he said the agency was looking the other way as the nation’s largest banks were “ripping o  students on campuses across the country by saddling them with legally dubious account fees.”
Combine the CFPB’s abdication of its duties with the ODE’s decision to bar states from regulating compa- nies that collect federal student loans and it’s easy to understand why Em- ily White, the managing partner of DannLaw’s student loan department, has been inundated with calls. We’re helping those we can and o ering ad-
AttorneyAtLawMagazine.com
vice on the limited options available to those who are buried beneath a portion of the $1.5 trillion in student loan debt that is hanging like an an- chor around the nation’s economy.
 at debt, stagnant wages, and loos- ened lending standards are driving an upswing in home foreclosures which recently rose 44 percent in the nation’s metropolitan areas for the  rst time in 36 months. Daren Blomquist, of Attom Data Solutions, attributed the increase to a gradual easing of lending standards that started in 2014.
“We are starting to see some early signs of risks in the current housing boom,” Blomquist said. “ e pendu- lum is starting to swing back toward loose lending.”
I hate to tout my predictive abilities again, but I  agged the reemergence of sub-prime lending a few months ago when I described the lending “standards” used by an out t named Greenbox Loans.  ey were o ering up to $2 million in credit to borrow- ers with 500 FICO scores, homeown- ers one day clear of foreclosure, and people freshly emerged from bank- ruptcy. It’s as if the captain of the Ti- tanic decided to turn around and run into the iceberg again because only one side of the ship was damaged.
How is all this happening? Because the people who are supposed to be watching and protecting consum- ers and the American economy have abandoned their posts.
 at may be good for my business, but, as history
shows, it’s very,
very bad for our
country.  at’s something that should be keeping us all up at night.
Former Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann has been  ghting for homeowners, consumers and small businesses since he began his private practice in 1990. Upon leaving of ce in May 2008, Dann volunteered to represent homeowners facing foreclosure and became even more concerned about the standing of certain servicers to foreclose on his clients. Recognizing that the problem of fraudulent foreclosure practices was epidemic in Ohio, Marc Dann established the Dann Law Firm representing more than 500 homeowners in foreclosure in more than 65 different counties in Ohio.
13


































































































   11   12   13   14   15