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Mortgage rates have gone up nine weeks in a row -- something that's happened only one other time in the last 31 years, according to a Bankrate.com report today. The benchmark 30-year fixed-rate mortgage rose this week to 4.32 percent from 4.31 percent, according to Bankrate's weekly survey of large lenders. A year ago, it was 4.15 percent. Four weeks ago, the rate was 4.13 percent. The last nine-week streak of mortgage rate increases, according to Bankrate.com data going back to 1985, happened from September to November 2005.

Foreclosure starts increased nearly 7 percent in November from the previous month, but when compared to the previous year, they were down by over 9 percent, according to Black Knight Financial Services' First Look report, NationalMortgageNews.com reported today. There were 60,400 foreclosure starts in November, compared with 58,500 for October. Still, foreclosure starts remain near their 10-year-low level, Black Knight said. But for the fourth consecutive month, there was an increase in the percentage of loans 30 days or more past due but not in foreclosure. For November, the total delinquency rate was 4.46 percent, up from 4.35 percent in October.

Wells Fargo & Co. has reached a settlement tied to bad real estate loans that officials at Residential Capital LLC claim helped push the subprime mortgage lender into bankruptcy, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday. The bank reached the agreement with the trust overseeing ResCap’s liquidation. The ResCap liquidating trust was established in late 2013 to seek compensation from mortgage underwriters that passed bad loans to the servicing firm in the years before its bankruptcy. ResCap, which built its business selling loans directly or bundling them into mortgage-backed securities for resale, became the target of crippling litigation and slid into chapter 11 when they later plunged in value. Although the terms of Wells Fargo’s deal weren't made public, the trust has now recovered just under $400 million through settlements. Read more. (Subscription required.) http://www.wsj.com/articles/wells-fargo-reaches-deal-with-rescap-over-t…

To read more about litigation or liquidation trusts in bankruptcy, be sure to pick up a copy of ABI’s A Practitioner's Guide to Liquidation and Litigation Trusts. 

The U.S. Justice Department sued Barclays Plc for fraud over its sale of mortgage bonds after the bank balked at paying the amount the government sought in settlement negotiations, Bloomberg News reported today. The lawsuit announced yesterday is rare for big banks, which typically negotiate a settlement with the government rather than risk drawn-out litigation and a possible trial. The breakdown in talks suggests that the bank is willing to take its chances with incoming enforcement officials in the Trump administration. The bank has lined up a law firm whose top lawyer is known for his aggressive defense of clients, including Lt. Col. Oliver North. Barclays is one of a handful of European lenders, including HSBC Holdings Plc, Credit Suisse Group AG, UBS Group AG and Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc, that have yet to settle long-running U.S. probes into their sale of mortgage bonds ahead of the financial crisis. The Barclays lawsuit marks the first time the Justice Department has sued one of the banks at the center of an Obama administration initiative to recoup investor losses on the securities. The U.S. has extracted more than $46 billion from six U.S. financial institutions thus far, and on Friday Deutsche Bank AG said it reached a $7.2 billion agreement to resolve the investigation into its mortgage bond dealings.

Credit Suisse said that it had agreed to pay $5.3 billion to settle an investigation by the United States authorities into the packaging and sale of mortgages ahead of the global financial crisis eight years ago, the New York Times reported today. The announcement came a day after the Justice Department sued Barclays over the sale of toxic mortgage securities and Deutsche Bank separately said it had reached a tentative $7.2 billion deal to resolve an investigation into its sale of securities backed by residential mortgages. Credit Suisse said that it would pay a civil penalty of $2.48 billion and provide unspecified relief to American consumers valued at $2.8 billion over five years. The settlement is subject to final negotiations and board approval, according to the bank. The agreement would resolve claims that Credit Suisse, like many other financial institutions at the time, bundled together unsuitable mortgages into securities that contributed to the 2008 financial crisis when the American housing market collapsed.

Deutsche Bank announced yesterday that it had reached a tentative $7.2 billion deal to resolve a federal investigation into its sale of toxic mortgage securities, capping months of negotiations that weighed heavily on the bank’s stock price and reputation, the New York Times reported today. The civil settlement requires the bank, Germany’s largest, to pay a $3.1 billion penalty and provide relief to American consumers valued at $4.1 billion, the bank said in a statement that came ahead of a formal announcement in the case. The consumer portion of the settlement, the bank said, is expected to be “primarily in the form of loan modifications and other assistance to homeowners.” Still, the bank cautioned that the deal was not final, saying that “there can be no assurance that the U.S. Department of Justice and the bank will agree on the final documentation.” The payout would settle claims that the bank, like many other institutions during the financial crisis of 2008, sold investors mortgage securities that contributed to the crisis. Collectively, big banks have paid tens of billions of dollars over their sale of these securities.

Two former executives of the failed GulfSouth Private Bank in Destin, Fla., and another man have been indicted on federal charges of defrauding the Troubled Asset Relief Program of $7.5 million, National Mortgage News reported yesterday. Anthony J. Atkins, the bank's former president, and Samuel D. Cobb, a former vice president, and Bruce A. Houle, a customer from Inlet Beach, Fla., were hit with a seven-count indictment by a U.S. grand jury last week. The charges include conspiracy to commit bank fraud, false statements to a federally insured institution and bank and mail fraud, according to a news release from the Office of the Special Inspector General for TARP. Atkins and Cobb schemed in 2008 to conceal that the bank had mortgage loans in default, the inspector general's news release said. The executives are accused of having Houle and three others — Mark W. Shoemaker, Michael Bradley Bowen and William Blake Cody — take out $3.8 million of loans that the men were told they would not have to repay. A trial is scheduled for Feb. 6.