By MARK A. CALABRIA

From the Cato Institute

Today President Obama announced an expansion and modification of his Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP). While one can debate the merits of incentives to keep unemployed families in their homes while they search for jobs — I personally believe this will more often than not keep those families tied to weak labor markets — what should be beyond debate is the various bailouts to mortgage lenders contained in the program’s fine print.

Several of the largest mortgage lenders, including some that have already received huge bailouts, carry hundreds of billions worth of second mortgages on their books. As home prices have nationally declined by almost 30 percent, these second mortgages are worthless in the case of a foreclosure. Second mortgages are usually wiped out completely during a foreclosure if the price has decreased more than 20 percent. Yet the Obama solution is now to pay off 6 cents on the dollar for those junior liens. While 6 cents doesn’t sound like a lot, it is a whole lot more than zero, which is what the banks would receive otherwise. Given that the largest lenders are carrying over $500 billion in second mortgages that may need to be written down, we are looking at tens of billions of taxpayer dollars again being funneled to the very banks behind the mortgage crisis.

If that bailout isn’t enough, the new plan increases payments to lenders to not foreclose, all at the expense of the taxpayer. While TARP was passed under Bush’s watch, and he rightly deserves blame for it, Obama continues these bailouts in the name of avoiding a much needed correction in our housing market.

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Florida has been aptly dubbed one of the nation’s foreclosure hotspots, regularly posting foreclosure rates among the highest four of all the states for several years now – and its courts have a wall of foreclosure cases to back up those numbers.

In a so-called judicial state like Florida – and a good many others across the country – a foreclosure must get a judge’s stamp of approval. But the backlog has gotten so bad in the Sunshine State, that it’s pushed the Florida State Courts Administration to ask legislators for $9.6 million to bring in additional case managers and judges to help clear the still-growing glut of case files.

A recent study by Barclays Capital concluded that Florida has one of the most swollen pipelines of foreclosure cases in the nation, with Miami in particular having liquidated just 18 percent of its delinquent loans – the lowest percentage in the country. By comparison, Barclays said Las Vegas, which has the largest share of loans that are seriously delinquent, has pushed about 38 percent through liquidation.

Estimates from Florida’s court administrators put the number of pending foreclosure cases at 500,000.

According to the Palm Beach Post, it’s routine in Florida for foreclosures to take more than a year to settle, leaving properties to deteriorate, association fees to go unpaid, and families to be in limbo.

The local newspaper says judges there fear that without additional resources to clear the cases, the bottleneck will continue to drag down home values, which aren’t expected to stabilize until the backlog of distressed properties can be moved through the system.

“We want to be good partners in the economic recovery, not part of the problem,” Peter Blanc, chief judge of the 15th Judicial Circuit Court in Palm Beach County, told the Palm Beach Post. “We want to get properties through the courts and back onto the market. The numbers are just overwhelming.”

The Florida Bankers Association in January succeeded in lobbying lawmakers to introduce a bill that would clear the way for non-judicial foreclosures unless the borrower requests an appearance in court. Under the legislation, foreclosures could be concluded in as little as 90 days.

As more and more depositions are being taken of robo signers and other witnesses who appear in foreclosure cases by signing documents, a troubling issue has emerged….conflict of interest by the foreclosure mills that are staying up day and night to push their garbage foreclosure cases through.

There are only two or three documents that must be filed by the Plaintiff in order to be granted foreclosure. These documents must be trustworthy if a court is to rely upon them to grant foreclosure and deprive a homeowner of possession of the home.  What we’ve found through deposition and discovery is that attorneys who work in the foreclosure mills are signing the key documents that allow their firms to prevail in their cases. This is a staggering violation of the rules of professional ethics, but this practice is apparently quite widespread with groups of attorneys in the mills routinely signing documents, especially assignments of mortgages, allegedly on behalf of MERS in particular.  Any document signed by an attorney working for the Plaintiff is ethically improper, but very serious conflict of interest questions are raised when an assignment transfers the first mortgage to the Plaintiff while at the same time, there is any sort of second mortgage and certainly when the Plaintiff lists MERS as a Defendant.

An Absolute Conflict of Interest Anytime A Second Mortgage Exists

MERS is listed as the “mortgagee” or “nominee” on virtually every mortgage that is currently subject to foreclosure.  As we know from depositions, whenever the Plaintiff’s law firm needs to show evidence that the named plaintiff has the right to foreclose a mortgage, either an attorney in the office creates this false assignment or they send instructions to a document mill where the false assignment is signed by a robo signer.  Title attorneys and attorneys with a real estate background dispute the validity of any assignment from MERS (see Kessler v. Landmark) because MERS simply does not have the authority to issue assignments.  Setting this argument aside for just a moment however, the problem with any party acting on instructions from the Plaintiff’s firm is that this party is an agent of the Plaintiff law firm…I cannot conceive of any litigation where it would be permissible for a law firm to instruct his client, “Here’s the evidence I need”, and that client would produce the “evidence” according to instruction and return to the attorney who submits this “evidence” to the court. And yet this happens in virtually every foreclosure across the country….but wait, I got sidetracked down one ethical minefield, when I started in another direction.

When MERS executes one questionable assignment of mortgage (all MERS assignments are questionable) for the first mortgage and there is also a second mortgage that must be foreclosed, Plaintiff’s firms are often not bothering to serve the holder of the second mortgage…all they’re bothering to do is get “service” for that second mortgage on MERS…problematic in any case, but especially problematic when the agent for MERs on either the first or the second mortgage are either an attorney working for the Plaintiff or an agent of the attorney.  What follows here is a discussion of some of the ethical issues posed by such practices, and then posted here is a Motion to Disqualify Counsel which Foreclosure Fraud Fighter Mark Stopa has recently been using with great results…bottom line is the Motion to Disqualify must be heard before any substantive issues are addressed, and the foreclosure mills never want these Motions to Disqualify to be heard by a judge…..if judges started hearing these arguments on a regular basis they may never get around to granting foreclosure…and now, directly from the Florida Bar Journal:

Under the Florida Rules of Professional Conduct,  an attorney generally must not act as advocate at a trial in which the  attorney is likely to be a necessary witness on behalf of the  client. 1 The purpose of the  rule is to prevent evils that arise when a lawyer dons the hat of both  advocate and witness for his own client, as such dual role can  prejudice the opposing side or create a conflict of interest. 2
“At  a trial,” as used in the rule, does not encompass pre-trial or   post-trial proceedings, and thus, does not preclude the attorney from  conducting a pre-trial deposition, even if it were likely that the  attorney would be called as a witness at a trial. 3 Generally, where an attorney is a necessary  witness for a client, the trial of the case should be left to other  counsel; the dual capacity of counsel
and witness in the trial of a  cause should be avoided if possible. 4 If, from the outset, an attorney knows or can  reasonably anticipate that his or her testimony will be essential to  the prosecution of his or her client’s case, the attorney should  decline the representation altogether. 5 To avoid jeopardizing a client’s cause of action,  the better practice is for counsel who must decline or withdraw from  representation to arrange to have other counsel conduct the trial when  it is apparent that either he or a member of his firm will be required  to testify on behalf of his client. 6

The  mere possibility that the attorney would or might be a necessary   witness is insufficient. 7  Furthermore, unsubstantiated claims that plaintiff’s attorney is a  material witness will not disqualify the attorney from representing  his client. 8 Likewise, a  defendant’s motion for disqualification of a plaintiff’s attorney will  not be granted on the ground that the attorney “should be” a witness  for the plaintiffs where the plaintiffs testify that they prefer to  have their attorney act as their counsel rather than have him testify  in their behalf, and where it appears that any information the attorney possess is not crucial and could be presented through the   testimony of others. 9The  rule requiring a lawyer to withdraw when he expects to be a necessary   witness in a case is not designed to permit a lawyer to call opposing   counsel as a witness and thereby disqualify him as counsel. 10 Indeed, the District Court of Appeal  views with some skepticism motions to disqualify an attorney on the  grounds that the attorney will be a material witness in the case,  since such motions are sometimes filed for tactical or harassing   reasons, rather than the proper reason. 11 Opposing counsel should not be permitted to force  disassociation between counsel and client just by calling counsel as  an adverse witness, and a lawyer need not withdraw from a case where   the mere possibility exists that he or she might be called to testify  by the adversary party, as this would create the situation in which  the adversary could disassociate the client’s chosen  counsel. 12

However, although disqualification of an attorney  is an extraordinary remedy to be resorted to only sparingly, 13 when it is shown that the attorney will  be an indispensable witness or when the attorney becomes a “central   figure” in the case, disqualification is appropriate. Thus,  disqualification of an attorney from representation of defendants at  the trial was warranted in a defamation action where the attorney was  likely to be the featured witness at the trial, adducing evidence as  to plaintiff’s activities. 14  Likewise, an attorney was properly disqualified from representing the  personal
representative in a will contest, where the attorney had  prepared and witnessed the contested will, and, therefore, would be a  witness on matters of substance at the trial. 15 Also, both an attorney and the attorney’s firm   should have been disqualified from representation, where an attorney  brought an action against a partnership for his wife in a  slip-and-fall case and for himself on a claim for loss of consortium,  and the attorney’s partner had represented the partnership and still  served as its resident agent for service of process, because the  attorney could well be called to testify, resulting in a violation of  a rule of professional conduct, and the firm, through its  representation, may have had access to privileged information of the  partnership. 16

¨ Observation: A  litigant’s action in causing the disqualification of its opponent’s  trial counsel enjoyed absolute immunity from a later claim of tortious  interference with a business relationship, where the litigant   certified to the trial court an intent to call opposing counsel as a  witness at trial, thereby causing opposing counsel to be disqualified,  but later failed to subpoena and call counsel as a witness at trial,  and when a judgment was entered against the litigant, disqualified  counsel brought an action against the litigant for tortious  interference with a business relationship. 17

FOOTNOTE 1. Rules  Regulating the Florida Bar, Rule 4-3.7(a).

Annotation References

Attorney as witness for client in civil  proceedings—modern state cases, 35
A.L.R. 4th 810.

Trial Strategy References

Attorney Malpractice in Real Estate Transactions,  27 Am. Jur. Proof of
Facts 3d 353.

Existence of attorney–client Relationship, 48 Am.  Jur. Proof of Facts 2d
525.

FOOTNOTE 2. Scott v.  State, 717 So. 2d 908, 23 Fla. L. Weekly S175 (Fla.
1998), reh’g  denied, (June 15, 1998).

FOOTNOTE 3. Columbo v.  Puig, 745 So. 2d 1106, 24 Fla. L. Weekly D2705
(Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 3d  Dist. 1999).

FOOTNOTE 4. Dudley v.  Wilson, 152 Fla. 752, 13 So. 2d 145 (1943).

FOOTNOTE 5. Hubbard v.  Hubbard, 233 So. 2d 150 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 4th
Dist. 1970) (decided  under predecessor law governing the Bar).

FOOTNOTE 6. Beavers v.  Conner, 258 So. 2d 330 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 3d
Dist. 1972), appeal  after remand, 289 So. 2d 462 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 3d Dist.
1974)  (decided under predecessor law governing the Bar).

FOOTNOTE 7. Srour v.  Srour, 733 So. 2d 593, 24 Fla. L. Weekly D1329 (Fla.
Dist. Ct. App.  5th Dist. 1999).

Singer Island Ltd., Inc. v. Budget Const. Co.,  Inc., 714 So. 2d 651, 23
Fla. L. Weekly D1773 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 4th  Dist. 1998).

A franchiser’s attorney was not required to be  disqualified for conflict
of interest based on the attorney’s previous  representation of a franchisee,
where the attorney previously had  written two letters and had sat in on
meetings with the franchisee in  connection with the franchisee’s claim that
its assignor was in breach  of its noncompetition agreement and, when the
franchisee brought an  action against the franchiser alleging a breach of the
franchise  agreement, contended that the attorney should be disqualified,
even  though there was no evidence that the attorney’s testimony would be
necessary or that his testimony would be averse to the franchiser’s  position.

Swensen’s Ice Cream Co. v. Voto, Inc., 652 So. 2d  961, 20 Fla. L. Weekly
D811 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 4th Dist.  1995).

FOOTNOTE 8. Pascucci v.  Pascucci, 679 So. 2d 1311, 21 Fla. L. Weekly D2142
(Fla. Dist. Ct.  App. 4th Dist. 1996).

FOOTNOTE 9. Cazares v.  Church of Scientology of California, Inc., 429 So.
2d 348 (Fla. Dist.  Ct. App. 5th Dist. 1983), petition for review denied,
438 So. 2d 831  (Fla. 1983) and related reference, 444 So. 2d 442 (Fla. Dist.
Ct. App.  5th Dist. 1983).

FOOTNOTE 10. Allstate Ins.  Co. v. English, 588 So. 2d 294, 16 Fla. L.
Weekly D2774 (Fla. Dist.  Ct. App. 2d Dist. 1991).

Arcara v. Philip M. Warren, P.A., 574 So. 2d 325,  16 Fla. L. Weekly 530
(Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 4th Dist. 1991).

Ray v. Stuckey, 491 So. 2d 1211, 11 Fla. L.  Weekly 1569 (Fla. Dist. Ct.
App. 1st Dist. 1986).

FOOTNOTE 11. Singer Island  Ltd., Inc. v. Budget Const. Co., Inc., 714 So.
2d 651, 23 Fla. L.  Weekly D1773 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 4th Dist. 1998).

FOOTNOTE 12. Allstate Ins.  Co. v. English, 588 So. 2d 294, 16 Fla. L.
Weekly D2774 (Fla. Dist.  Ct. App. 2d Dist. 1991).

FOOTNOTE 13. § 329.

FOOTNOTE 14. Fleitman v.  McPherson, 691 So. 2d 37, 22 Fla. L. Weekly D884
(Fla. Dist. Ct. App.  1st Dist. 1997), related reference, 704 So. 2d 587, 22
Fla. L. Weekly  D2091 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 1st Dist. 1997).

FOOTNOTE 15. Larkin v.  Pirthauer, 700 So. 2d 182, 22 Fla. L. Weekly D2387
(Fla. Dist. Ct.  App. 4th Dist. 1997).

FOOTNOTE 16. Springtree  Country Club Plaza, Ltd. v. Blaut, 642 So. 2d 27,
19 Fla. L. Weekly  D1704 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 4th Dist. 1994).

FOOTNOTE 17. Levin,  Middlebrooks, Mabie, Thomas, Mayes & Mitchell, P.A. v.
U.S. Fire  Ins. Co., 639 So. 2d 606, 19 Fla. L. Weekly S347 (Fla. 1994).

To: U.S. Senator Chris Dodd
Chairman Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs

Dear Senator Dodd,

As women and as taxpayers, we are writing to you today to tell you that size matters.

Usually we love big. Big boxes of chocolate, big boxes of wine, big — well you know. But when it comes to big banks and big bank bailouts, it’s a whole different story.

As you get ready to take up bank reform in your committee next week, we need to talk.

When Congress voted to repeal depression-era Glass-Steagall protections, it put the big banks on Viagra. Since then they have had a big problem and it has lasted a lot longer than four hours.

The top five banks hold 50% of all bank assets. That hurts. They are simply too big for their britches. They have been ramping up those big bank fees, paying out big bank bonuses and spending big bucks on bank lobbyists to defeat reform.

We know what those big banks are telling you — “size doesn’t matter.” JP Morgan’s Jamie Dimon may be cute, but he is just a player. Big bank bravado only leads to big bank bailouts. After spending $4 trillion on the latest one, we simply can’t afford to get knocked up for another.

It’s better to be safe than sorry. Now is the time to take the prophylactic approach. Your bill needs a hard cap the size of the biggest banks. That right, cap ‘em, shrink ‘em, slice ‘em, dice ‘em. Economist Simon Johnson tells us that no bank’s liabilities should be greater than 2% of the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Did you know Bank of America’s liabilities are 14% of GDP? Your teeny, tiny $50 billion bailout fund could leave taxpayers on the hook for trillions if that big boy went belly up.

So be a big man and do the right thing. You can prevent the next crisis and by doing so you will give yourself (and us) a great deal of satisfaction.

Put a real size cap in the bill — the one you have now does absolutely nothing — and put stronger Glass-Steagall protections in place so we are no longer taking chances that are too big and will fail.

Source: BanksterUsa.org