Reply: Mortgage documents: Placeholder items were innocent

Posted: May 20, 2010 – 4:35pm Jacksonville.com

LPS is very involved in the Jacksonville community and highly values its role and reputation as a good corporate citizen.

Therefore, I believe it is vitally important to provide clarification to the May 14 article in The Florida Times-Union, “Florida Investigating ‘Bogus’ Foreclosure Records.”

The article discusses LPS’ subsidiary, Docx LLC, which provided a document preparation service to its customers and/or their attorneys from 2008 to 2009.

When a customer or its attorney requested that Docx prepare a document, Docx downloaded the information provided in the customer or attorney order into a pre-approved form provided by the customer or its attorney.

When preparing the documents, if specific pieces of information were not provided by the customer or attorney, Docx used the phrases “Bogus Assignee” and “Bad Bene” as highly visible placeholders that would then be replaced when the missing information was provided to Docx. 

Unfortunately, on a few occasions, documents containing the placeholder phrases were inadvertently recorded before the field was updated.

While to our knowledge, none of these documents have been used in actual court proceedings, LPS deeply regrets this error.

However, these placeholder phrases had no other meaning other than to indicate that more information was needed. Docx is not a party to any court proceedings and our role ends when the prepared documents are returned to the attorney or customer.

In a separate matter, LPS reported in February that it identified a business process that caused an error in the notarization of certain documents, some of which were used in foreclosure proceedings. LPS immediately corrected the business process and believes it has completed the remedial actions necessary to minimize the impact of the error.

Finally, although LPS has not been contacted by the Florida attorney general regarding this or any other matter, LPS continues to express its willingness to cooperate with any governmental agency that contacts us.

JEFF CARBIENER,

president and CEO,

Lender Processing Services,

Jacksonville

From B.DaviesMd6605

MERS IS LOOSING BIG TIME. THEY ARE A SCAM PRODUCED TO CHEAT AMERICANS AND THOSE WHO WORK IN REAL ESTATE RECORDS FROM MILLIONS OF DOLLARS BY NOT DOING ASSIGNMENTS. THIS FACILITATED CORRUPTION AND PREDATORY LENDING BY BUILDERS, THEIR LENDERS, AND OTHERS., THIS NEEDS TO END, WE WILL MAKE SURE IT DOES. THOSE PREDATORY ATTORNEYS WHO KNOW THIS FRAUD WILL BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE. THE DOJ IS INVESTIGATING AND THE END WILL COME.

Scribd

You know from the ridiculous fees these banks pay from the Mills to the keeping up with the REOS’ (if they keep up with maintenance).

Does it make any $en$e why they DO NOT work it out with the homeowners?

I mean if you take a look at what they end up selling for at auction or in a short sale…Does it make any $en$e??

Again, does it make any freaking $en$e?

Now take a look at Foreclosure Mill Law Offices of David J. Stern in Plantation (DJSP) for example Small Foreclosure Firm’s Big Bucks: Back Office Grossed $260M in 2009:

and his assets below:

Source: AmericansUnitedForJustice.org

http://AmericansUnitedForJustice.org is working on Law Offices Of David J. Stern’s #2 Cheryl Samons stay tuned

DOES THIS MAKE ANY $EN$E?

DOJ are you watching?

Could this mean the 60% are either in Foreclosure or Lost their homes!

Survey: 4 in 10 homeowners would consider walking away from ‘underwater’ mortgage

MIAMI – May 21, 2010 – More than 40 percent of homeowners with a mortgage say they would consider abandoning an “underwater” property, according to a national online survey released Thursday.

The study conducted this month by Harris Interactive for real estate firms Trulia and RealtyTrac touched on a topic that affects many South Floridians.

More than 371,000 homes in Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties were worth less than the mortgage amount at the end of the first quarter, Zillow.com said recently.

Pete Flint, chief executive of Trulia, said on a conference call with reporters he “absolutely expects” more homeowners to walk away in the coming years as the stigma of foreclosure fades.

This is the fifth such survey of consumer attitudes since 2008, but the first time questions about underwater mortgages were included, Flint said.

Because South Florida home prices have fallen by more than 40 percent since the peak of the housing boom in 2005, underwater borrowers here may have to stay put for a decade or more until they can break even in a sale, housing experts say.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSFVx1c6ca8]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0jX_T0nHv8]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6hy4PBo4tE]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shiAP8_WxxY]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSZLfYJg_cM]

ENOUGH is ENOUGH!

The more they destroy our lives, the more we lose our identity!

Simon Johnson

: May 21, 2010 09:21 AM

Focus on This: Merkley-Levin Did Not Get a Vote

After nine months of hard fighting, yesterday financial reform came down to this: an amendment, proposed by Senators Jeff Merkley and Carl Levin that would have forced big banks to get rid of their speculative proprietary trading activities (i.e., a relatively strong version of the Volcker Rule.)

The amendment had picked up a great deal of support in recent weeks, partly because of unflagging support from Paul Volcker and partly because of the broader debate around the Brown-Kaufman amendment (which would have forced the biggest 6 banks to become smaller). Brown-Kaufman failed, 33-61, but it demonstrated that a growing number of senators were willing to confront the power of our biggest and worst banks.

Yet, at the end of the day, the Merkley-Levin amendment did not even get a vote. Why?

continue reading…. Huffington Post

BY: CARRIE BAY DSNEWS.com

With home loans going bad at a still-staggering pace and losses mounting for the GSEs, the nation’s two largest mortgage financiers are pursuing several avenues to recover money, including returning poorly underwritten loans to lenders. During the first three months of this year,Fannie Mae and Freddie Mae required lenders to buy back $3.1 billion in mortgages they’d sold to the two firms.

Lenders repurchased approximately $1.8 billion in loans from Fannie in Q1, measured by unpaid principal balance, according to a recent filing by the GSE with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). During the same period last year, Fannie forced lenders to buy back $1.1 billion in bad loans.

“We conduct reviews of delinquent loans and, when we discover loans that do not meet our underwriting and eligibility requirements, we make demands for lenders to repurchase these loans or compensate us for losses sustained on the loans, as well as requests for repurchase or compensation for loans for which the mortgage insurer rescinds coverage,” Fannie wrote in the regulatory filing.

Freddie Mac sent $1.3 billion in faulty home mortgages back to the loan sellers during the January to March period, the GSE said in its Q1 SEC filing. That compares to repurchases of $789 million during the first quarter of 2009.

“We are exposed to institutional credit risk arising from the potential insolvency or non-performance by our mortgage seller/servicers, including non-performance of their repurchase obligations arising from breaches of the representations and warranties made to us for loans they underwrote and sold to us,” Freddie Mac explained in the regulatory document.

Freddie says some of its seller/servicers failed to perform their repurchase obligations due to lack of financial capacity, and many of the larger seller/servicers have not completed their buybacks “in a timely manner.”

“As of March 31, 2010 and December 31, 2009, we had outstanding repurchase requests to our seller/servicers with respect to loans with an unpaid principal balance of approximately $4.8 billion and $3.8 billion, respectively,” the GSE said.

As of the end of March, approximately 34 percent of Freddie’s outstanding purchase requests were more than 90 days past due.

“Our credit losses may increase to the extent our seller/servicers do not fully perform their repurchase obligations,” Freddie Mac wrote in the filing. “Enforcing repurchase obligations with lender customers who have the financial capacity to perform those obligations could also negatively impact our relationships with such customers and ability to retain market share.”

According to regulatory filings made by the GSEs earlier in the year, the two companies are expecting to return as much as $21 billion in home mortgages to banks in 2010. The nation’s four largest lenders – Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, and JPMorgan Chase – are the largest sellers of home loans to Fannie and Freddie and will likely take the biggest hits.

A recent report from Bloomberg noted that these banks sell mortgages to the GSEs at full value, which means they must buy them back at full value. But the news agency says at least one bank, JPMorgan Chase, says most of the loans repurchased must be immediately written down, sometimes by as much as 50 percent.

Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, May 20, 2010; 4:10 PM

Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley signed legislation Thursday that creates a foreclosure mediation program designed to help beleaguered homeowners stay in their homes.

The bill gives homeowners the legal right to mediation with their lender during foreclosure proceedings.

“With my signature today, we are empowering our fellow Marylanders, putting them on a more equal footing with mortgage companies that too often can’t be bothered to pick up the phone before beginning a foreclosure proceeding,” O’Malley said in a statement. “This legislation will help keep more Marylanders in the homes they worked hard to purchase.”

Under the bill, the lender is required to send an application for a loan-modification or loss-mitigation program to the homeowner at least 45 days before a foreclosure action is filed in court. It is also mandated that the lender pay a $300 fee for a foreclosure filing.

The homeowner has 15 days after receiving the lender’s final loss-mitigation affidavit, which states reasons for denial of a loan modification, to request a foreclosure mediation. The request must be sent to the Circuit Court, along with a $50 fee.

A work group organized by O’Malley last year initially considered a mandatory mediation program. But the bill instead allows homeowners to opt in.

The program, which is scheduled to be fully implemented by mid-August, will be handled by the Office of Administrative Hearings.

The mediation program is O’Malley’s latest effort to help homeowners stave off foreclosure.

In 2008, O’Malley proposed bills that extended the foreclosure timetable from 15 to 150 days, prohibited prepayment penalties and made egregious mortgage schemes subject to criminal prosecution.

DISMISSED!

May 20, 2010

Today, a Key West, Florida Circuit Court Judge dismissed a foreclosure action filed by Florida Default Law Group (FDLG), which was representing Bank of New York as the alleged “Trustee” of a Bear Stearns securitized mortgage loan trust. The borrower, who was represented by FDN’s Jeff Barnes, Esq., had served discovery on FDLG in late February, 2009. FDLG filed one of its form “open ended” Motions for Extension of Time to respond to the discovery (that being with no date certain for the response). FDLG failed to respond to Mr. Barnes’ good-faith request as to how much time FDLG needed to respond to the borrower’s discovery. The first “response” from FDLG came over 13 months later when FDLG objected to practically everything which Mr. Barnes asked for.

FDLG also failed to comply with the Court’s Pretrial Order, and had a history in the case of violating court orders and actually paid sanctions on prior Motion filed by Mr. Barnes. The Court dismissed the case and conditioned any re-filing on full compliance with Mr. Barnes’ discovery and the Court’s Orders.

Jeff Barnes, Esq., www.ForeclosureDefenseNationwide.com