[gollum]

http://www.cnbc.com/id/39740025



Was the great securitization machine that made hundreds of billions of dollars in mortgage loans based on a legal foundation of sand?

That possibility, raised by two law school professors, has begun to scare many jittery investors, causing bank stocks to plummet, although they recovered a little Monday.

If they are correct, the best outcome for lenders would be a prolonged delay in completing foreclosures, raising costs still further and paralyzing an already depressed housing market.

The worst outcome would be a conclusion that errors by financial institutions had decoupled the payment promises made by borrowers from the mortgages they signed. In that case, the mortgages would be invalid.