“Testing”- Document Authenticity

READ CAREFULLY…

• The mortgage market’s continued ability to lend money relies on the liquidity of promissory notes secured by real property.
• Paper promissory notes are endorsed “in blank”so that whoever has “possession”of the note is considered a holder, holder in due course, or purchaser.

[ipaper docId=35170867 access_key=key-qw5eoqxma51sn7wcqic height=600 width=600 /]

If you on SPERS.org’s site there is also some information to be looked at…like power point presentation and some pdf files. Click below

SPERS.ORG

Via: Brian K. Korte, Esq.

http://www.signaturemachine.com/products/demo_page.htm

DinSFLA Here: Now if we just put these time frames such as ‘1999’ with all that is happening today we arrive to some answers…Don’t we?

Electronic communications make it possible to conduct old transactions in new forms.  Some of the oldest kinds of transactions governed by law are transactions in real estate:  for example, sales, leases and mortgages.  In the Middle Ages transactions in real estate were conducted symbolically, without paper or signatures.  Writing, printing and more universal literacy brought paper deeds, mortgages and leases, memorialized by words on paper with manual signatures.   These were filed in public records to establish who had rightful title to any piece of land.  Several centuries have gone by since that initial migration to the then-new technology of paper documents and manual signatures.  A new technology of computers, software to run them, and electronic communications has come to replace paper.  The law of real property must now make a transition to accommodate the new technology.  The efficiency of real estate markets makes this imminently necessary.

This long dependence on paper, however, casts up certain barriers to using electronic communications to carry on real estate transactions.  The law of the states of the United States has many “statute of fraud” requirements that inhibit the use of electronic communications.  Statute of fraud requirements put total and express reliance upon paper documents and manual signatures to make transactions enforceable.  No paper, no enforcement.  These same requirements have also made it more difficult to develop electronic analogues to transactions in paper that are equally enforceable.

The first step to remedy the problem took place in 1999 when the Uniform Law Commissioners promulgated the Uniform Electronic Transactions Act (UETA).  This act adjusted statute of fraud provisions to include electronic “records” and “signatures” for the memorialization of all kinds of transactions, including basic transactions in real estate.  It is possible to have sale contracts, mortgage instruments (in whatever form a jurisdiction uses) and promissory notes memorialized in electronic form with electronic signatures that will now be treated the equal of the same paper documents with manual signatures.  This is the result of the widespread enactment of UETA and of the subsequent enactment of the Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act (E-Sign) by Congress.

Real estate documents must be recorded on public records to be effective.  Recording takes place in most states in a county office devoted to keeping these records.  Recording protects current interests in real estate by clarifying who holds those interests.  The chain of title leading to the current title-holder, meaning the historic record of documents relating to transactions for a specific piece of real estate, establishes the marketability of that piece of real estate by the current owner of interests in it.  The real estate records establish this chain of title.  State law governs these local recording offices, and there are requirements in the law of every state relating to the originality and authenticity of paper documents that are presented for recording.  UETA included optional provisions dealing with governmental authority, including that of local governments, to accept and utilize electronic records.  However, not all states adopted these optional provisions, and confusion still persisted whether these provisions, coupled with the rest of UETA, authorized recordation of electronic records.

The Uniform Real Property Electronic Recording Act (URPERA) removes any doubt with regard to the ability of a local recording office to accept and otherwise process electronic documents and signatures for recording.  Further, there must be an orderly conversion of every recording office in the United States for electronic recording to become accepted universally.  That will be a complex process, but it needs a starting point in the law.  URPERA, promulgated by the Uniform Law Commissioners in 2004, provides that essential start.

The act does three fairly simple things that will have monumental effect.  First, it establishes that any requirement for originality, for a paper document or for a writing manually signed before it may be recorded, is satisfied by an electronic document and signature.  This is essentially an express extension of the principles of UETA and E-Sign to the specific requirements for recording documents relating to real estate transactions in any state.  Second, it establishes what standards a recording office must follow and what it must do to make electronic recording effective.  For example, the office must comply with standards set by the board established in a state to set them.  It must set up a system for searching and retrieving electronic documents.  There are a minimum group of requirements established in URPERA.  Third, URPERA establishes the board that sets statewide standards and requires it to set uniform standards that must be implemented in every recording office.

These may be simple steps in the law, but the entire process of implementing electronic recording of electronic real estate documents will be complex from state to state.  Inserting URPERA in the law of a state requires careful scrutiny of its real estate law.  If paper documents are effective, for example, when they are time-stamped when delivered to a recording office, when should electronic documents that may be delivered electronically when an office is closed be considered effective?  Answers to questions like this one will take some work and some complex decisions as URPERA is considered for enactment in any state.

Notwithstanding this need for careful effort, it is important to make the start on electronic recording of real estate documents.  Real estate transactions involve billions of dollars in the United States.  The efficiency of real estate markets depends upon the adoption of technology to make them faster and more competitive.  After UETA and E-Sign, the key is URPERA.  Every state needs to consider it as soon as possible.

More info…ElectronicRecording.org

RELATED ARTICLE:

Electronic Property Document Recording (ERDS)

By David Ellis, staff writer July 29, 2010: 3:57 PM ET

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Citigroup said Thursday it would pay $73 million to settle charges by the Securities and Exchange Commission that the bank, as well as two of its executives, misled investors about the company’s exposure to the subprime mortgage market.

Wall Street’s top regulator said Citigroup repeatedly made misleading statements in investor presentations and in public filings about the actual size of assets it controlled that were backed by subprime mortgages.

Between July and mid-October 2007, the company maintained its holdings of what have now been dubbed “toxic assets”, stood at $13 billion, when in fact the number was closer to $50 billion, according to the SEC.

“The rules of financial disclosure are simple — if you choose to speak, speak in full and not in half-truths,” Robert Khuzami, director of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement, said in a statement.

Continue reading….CNN

DinSFLA here: MEDIATION without the true lenders disclosed may be an issue later…these mills have no right to play middlemen to no one! You must make sure who the real parties are before, during and after foreclosure!

Florida Default Group is emailing foreclosure defense attorneys with emails stating “Per your request, conciliation will be scheduled for your client…” that is how the are scamming even REPRESENTED defendants out of their right to a third party mediation (not that they are going to work anyway).

As I myself have witnessed on many occasions, some mill attorneys, or LOCAL COUNSEL, like Peter Porcaro local counsel for Stern’s office, bring pro se defendants out of the courtroom, smooth talk them into an agreement where there is an “extended sale date 120 days into the future, and an agreement for “conciliation” (which differs from mediation because mediation for primary residences cost the plaintiff $750 each and also there is a mediator) and a waiver of mediation. Conciliation is at no cost to the plaintiff and is between the two parties without a mediator. There is no explanation of mediation vs conciliation and no telling that the FL Supreme Court mandates mediation unless it is waived. There is no acknowledgment of months if not years of frustrated attempts at “conciliation” in terms of loan mods or short sales or deeds in lieu and how the defendants have a right to mediation. If any issues regarding the veracity and/or authenticity of the documents in the court file are raised, the answer given in these hallway dirty dealings, is “I’m not involved with that. I don’t work for their office.”

The same thing happens with all the mills. Attached is what the defendant in a Marshall Watson case walked away with…..just read it to see …………

See for yourselves. Stand outside of courtroom 10H or the other “foreclosure mill courtrooms” and watch this play out.

Sincerely,
Lisa Epstein
ForeclosureHamlet.org

DinSFLA here: This might make it harder to detect fraud and this will eliminate paper PERIOD. FOR GOOD! This MUST STOP.

BNY Mellon Corporate Trust Launches Innovative eVault Service

New service transforms paper-based process of tracking and storing mortgage documents

NEW YORK, July 28 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — BNY Mellon Corporate Trust has introduced an eVault service that will allow it to receive, process and store electronic mortgage documents on behalf of its clients, significantly improving all stages in the life-cycle of a loan.

eVault is an industry-changing innovation that enables the company to provide certification, safekeeping and status reporting for electronically created and signed mortgage documents.  By transforming the current paper-based process into one that is completely electronic, eVault boosts efficiency, creates transparency by making it easier for participants to see data and exchange information and, since the need for couriers and manual entry have been eliminated, allows faster delivery to the secondary market.

“We’re excited to be redefining the role of a document custodian through our introduction of eVault, a service that changes how mortgage documents are generated and handled,” said Rick Stanley, executive vice president and head of structured credit at BNY Mellon Corporate Trust.  “Documents no longer have to be printed on paper to be signed, and they don’t have to be manually shipped or physically stored.  By making the mortgage process fully electronic, eVault allows lenders to reduce their costs through automation.”

The move toward a paperless environment is one that is supported and being driven by the mortgage industry itself, as demonstrated by the creation of Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems (MERS), an electronic way to easily identify and track individual mortgage loans and the information related to those loans.

“By using electronic commerce, eVault eliminates paper and helps streamline the mortgage process, which is one of the goals of MERS,” Stanley added.  “As one of the industry’s largest document custodians, we will work with MERS and the other utilities driving this electronic movement to continue to develop what the custodial role should be in the future.”

The company has partnered with eSignSystems, a leading provider of lifecycle management tools for eMortgage processing and other legally binding electronic transactions that provides full integration with MERS and ensures documents remain free from tampering.  eSignSystems is a division of Wave Systems Corp. (Nasdaq: WAVX).

BNY Mellon Corporate Trust services $12 trillion in outstanding debt from 61 locations in 20 countries. Its clients include governments and their agencies, multinational corporations, financial institutions and other entities that access the global debt capital markets. The corporate trust business utilizes its global footprint and expertise to deliver a full range of issuer and related investor services and develop customized and market-driven solutions. Its range of core services includes debt trustee, paying agency, escrow and other fiduciary offerings.

Corporate trust providers are appointed by corporations, municipal governments and other entities issuing debt to perform a variety of duties, including servicing and maintaining the debt issue, processing principal and interest payments for investors, representing investors in defaults, and providing value-added services for complex debt structures.

BNY Mellon is a global financial services company focused on helping clients manage and service their financial assets, operating in 36 countries and serving more than 100 markets.  BNY Mellon is a leading provider of financial services for institutions, corporations and high-net-worth individuals, providing superior asset management and wealth management, asset servicing, issuer services, clearing services and treasury services through a worldwide client-focused team.  It has $21.8 trillion in assets under custody and administration and $1.0 trillion in assets under management, services $11.6 trillion in outstanding debt and processes global payments averaging $1.5 trillion per day.  BNY Mellon is the corporate brand of The Bank of New York Mellon Corporation (NYSE: BK).  Additional information is available at www.bnymellon.com.

SOURCE BNY Mellon

Infowars.com
July 27, 2010

george4title

I couldn’t find statistics for local utility shut offs in my area, but I knew we would start to see more and more of this.

Houses everywhere are going vacant. People don’t say goodbye, they don’t leave a number, they just disappear. With their disappearance we add another vacant house to the street. But families living in housing without utilities is a new sight for me to behold. I spoke recently with a rep from So Cal Edison who, full time contacts residence who have had their electricity turned off due to non payment. She has a negotiator sent in and they work on a reduced payment. It’s amazing to me, that now, it is becoming acceptable in California to camp out in your home.

People are losing their homes, losing their cars and losing their dignity. How are we going to afford kids clothes and school supplies for the coming year? How can we expect families to pay for all these additional costs when the economy is in the shape it in. I ask myself this everyday.

Continue reading…INFOWARS.com

KABOOM!!! This will send out shock waves.

After last week’s lawsuit filed on behalf of investors for possible securities fraud violations against DJSP Enterprises and another pending. I present to you another Class Action filed 7/26/2010 this time against the Law Offices of David J. Stern P.A., David J. Stern and MERSCORP, Inc..

Mr. Trent totally “gets it” and in this complaint he outlines and points out what we all have a hard time piecing together.

Here are excerpts of the complaint:

Beginning in or about 1999, the Defendant Firm joined with Defendant Merscorp, Inc., and other conspirators in the fraudulent scheme and RICO enterprise herein complained of. The employees of the Defendant Firm, including many licensed attorneys, have become skilled in using the artifice of MERS to sabotage the judicial process to the detriment of borrowers, and, over the past several years, have routinely relied upon MERS to do just that.

As Stern boasted to a room of investors at a recent promotional event, recent “direct source initiatives” by the larger lenders increasingly enable the Defendant Firm, DJSP, and other entities recently formed by Stern to take mortgages “from cradle to the grave.”

The whole purpose of MERS is to allow “servicers” to pretend as if they are someone else: the “owners” of the mortgage, or the real parties in interest. In fact they are not. The standard MERS/Stern complaint contains a lie about this very subject. While the title of the standard complaint makes reference to “lost loan documents,” in the body of the standard complaint, the Defendant Firm alleges that the plaintiff is the “owner and holder” of the note and mortgage. Both cannot be true unless the words used are given new meanings.

With the oversight of Defendant Merscorp and its unknown principals, the MERS artifice and enterprise evolved into an “ultra-fictitious” entity, which can also be understood as a “meta-corporation.” To perpetuate the scheme, MERS was and is used in a way so that to the average consumer, or even legal professional, can never determine who or what was or is ultimately receiving the benefits of any mortgage payments. The conspirators set about to confuse everyone as to who owned what. They created a truly effective smokescreen which has left the public and most of the judiciary operating “in the dark” through the present time.

The preparation, filing, and prosecution of the complaints to “Foreclose Mortgage and to Enforce Lost Loan Documents” were each predicate acts in the pattern of racketeering activity herein complained of, and were actions taken in furtherance of the MERS enterprise. The actions could not have been brought by the Defendant Firm without the MERS artifice and the ability to generate any necessary “assignment” which flowed from it.

By engaging in a pattern of racketeering activity, specifically “mail or wire fraud,” the Defendants subject to this Count participated in a criminal enterprise affecting interstate commerce. In addition to the altered postmarks described below, the mail fraud is the sending of the fraudulent assignments and pleadings to the clerks of court, judges, attorneys, and defendants in foreclosure cases. These Defendants intentionally participated in a scheme to defraud others, including the Plaintiff and the other Class Members, and utilized the U.S. Mail to do so.

These documents were executed by an “Assistant Secretary” or “Vice President,” apparently of MERS. In reality, the person executing the assignments had no knowledge whatsoever of the truth of their contents, and was simply an employee of the Defendant Firm.

Altering common hardware and/or software used by the Defendant Firm so that envelopes used to mail important legal documents, such as final judgments, to defendants contain no date of mailing in the postmark and intentionally delaying in sending the mail until defendants have lost their rights. (Exhibit F). These predicate acts constitute “mail fraud.”

Here is an explanation from David J. Stern of the continuing foreclosure rout:

One of my favorite questions from one of my believers, one of my investors on the first call-in, “What inning are we in? If this was a baseball game, what inning are we in?” And my response is, we’re only in the 2nd inning. We still have 3 innings of foreclosures left, and after the foreclosures, we have 3 innings of REO liquidation and as the REO liquidations pan out, we get into the re-fi and we get into the origination.
[ . . . ]
So yeah, we’re in the 2nd inning, but guess what – when we get to the 9th inning, it’s going to be a doubleheader and we got a second game coming. So when people say, “Oh my God, the economy is bad!” I’m like, “Oh my God, it’s great.” I mean, I hate to hear people are losing their homes and credit isn’t available and credit is such that they can’t re-fi, but if you are in our niche, it’s what we do and it’s what we want to see.

[ipaper docId=34959419 access_key=key-zii1wo2j5d6enxmd05b height=600 width=600 /]

Thank you attorney Kenneth Eric Trent P.A. from Ft. Lauderdale , FL !

Dig deep enough you might find something old or something new 🙂

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Edit: From a viewer who makes it clear.

The GSE rule is: A borrower is denied equal access to government supported financial markets for seven years unless the borrower “waives” rights to challenge servicer claims? This is a direct attempt to deprive an individual of access to the legal system in order to redress grievances. This is an unconstitutional exercise of power by these quaisi-govt authorities controlled by government. If the govt cannot do that in its own name–how can it be proper to do it under a nameplate of an entity owned and controlled by the government. Aside from implications in respect of civil liberties, it is not even good financial policy for servicers and lenders to be automatically released of liability for predatory lending and collection activities. This rule can have only one effect and that is to encourage more abuses. This is tantamount to abolishing judicial oversight of lending abuses.

By: Carrie Bay 07/26/2010 DSNEWS

The court held that it “will hold a hearing to determine what sanctions if any, that may be imposed upon Steven J. Baum, P.C. for the false representations made in the petition,” as counsel for Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp.

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By ALAN ZIBEL (AP) –

WASHINGTON — Thought the housing crisis was over? Not quite.

Despite four years of falling prices and recent signs that they were finally bottoming out, homes are expected to lose still more value in many metro areas over the next year.

Parts of the country already pummeled by the housing crisis, like Las Vegas, Phoenix and Miami, will be hit hardest. But even some places that have held up relatively well — including New York, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. — will suffer, too.

That’s the conclusion of economists who have been reducing their estimates for home prices as the outlook for the economic recovery has darkened. The number of homes for sale or headed for foreclosure is so high that they think prices will be even lower by next July.

Because housing is such an important engine of the economy, lower prices could dim the recovery. When home values fall and people have less equity, they tend to cut back on spending. And as prices decline, potential homebuyers stay on the sidelines, slowing sales even more.

Earlier this year, analysts said they thought home prices had finally reached their low point and were ready to start rising slowly in most areas of the country. Now, they think the actual bottom could be nearly a year away.

The average home price in the Standard & Poor’s Case-Shiller index of 20 big U.S. cities is forecast to drop nearly 2 percent this year from a year earlier, according to the average estimate of more than 100 economists polled this month by MacroMarkets LLC.

That’s more pessimistic than in May, when the consensus was for prices to be nearly flat. Other, more bearish analysts think prices will sink 10 percent or more.

Price drops of more than 10 percent are expected in the Phoenix, Miami and Las Vegas areas over the next year, according to Moody’s Analytics. Those areas have already been scorched by 50 percent declines in home values.

Moody’s predicts that other areas — New York, Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco, Denver, Detroit, Cleveland, Minneapolis, Tampa, Fla.; and Washington D.C. — will see declines of 2 to 8 percent by next July.

Many analysts expect home prices to rise for a few months because a tax credit offered to homebuyers through April increased demand. But the gains probably won’t last. By this time next year, Moody’s expects prices in 19 of the 20 cities to have fallen.

Why further price drops for already hard-hit areas, as well as in healthier markets like New York and Los Angeles?

There’s already a glut of homes left in each area by the real estate bust, and more foreclosures are expected as Americans fall behind on mortgage payments. Foreclosures add to the supply of homes on the market, bringing down prices.

In Miami, nearly a quarter of mortgage borrowers have missed at least three months of mortgage payments or are already in foreclosure, according to Moody’s. That’s the highest level in the country. In four other Florida cities — Fort Lauderdale, Cape Coral, West Palm Beach and Naples — the proportion exceeds 15 percent. The same is true for Las Vegas.

On top of that, so-called short sales, which happen when lenders let homeowners sell their houses for less than what they owe on their mortgages, are rising. They can drive down the value of neighboring homes, too. In Sacramento., Calif., short sales made up about 26 percent of homes sold in June, up from about 17 percent a year earlier.

Contributing to the problem is an economy grappling with high unemployment, relatively flat pay and tightened credit, all working to limit the number of people buying homes.

It could be a decade before the average price nationally reaches the peak it hit four summers ago, says Celia Chen, chief housing economist at Moody’s. Even when they do resume rising, prices may not outpace inflation.

The median price peaked at $230,300 in July 2006 before tumbling 28 percent to a low of $164,700 in January 2009, according to the National Association of Realtors. The median has since risen to $183,700.

Nationally, about 7.1 million homeowners — more than 13 percent of households with a mortgage — have either missed at least one payment or are in foreclosure, according to data provider Lender Processing Services Inc.

In some Sun Belt cities, investors armed with cash are gorging on deep discounts for some homes, yet the foreclosures keep coming. The local areas remain stuck with depressed economies and a glut of vacant and soon-to-be-vacant homes.

“Even when demand picks up, prices aren’t likely to budge all that much,” said Mark Vitner, senior economist with Wells Fargo Securities.

Moody’s forecasts flat or only slightly lower prices over the next year in Atlanta, Chicago, Boston, Dallas and Portland, Ore. And Seattle and Charlotte, N.C., are expected to enjoy slight price increases. In those areas, the supply of foreclosed homes is smaller, and the local economies are faring better.

Sales of new homes jumped last month, but it still was the second-weakest month in the 47 years records have been kept, the Commerce Department said Monday. Sales for April and March were also revised downward.

Michael Gao, 31, a software engineer in Mountain View, Calif., is watching home listings but feels renting is the wiser option for now. He fears the economy will worsen and thinks the home market will suffer.

“It’s really not looking good,” Gao said. “If the housing market will dip, then why would you buy now?”

Copyright © 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Goldman Sachs disclosed the list of companies to the Senate Finance Committee after a threat of subpoena from Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Ia.

Asked the significance of the list, Grassley said, “I hope it’s as simple as taxpayers deserve to know what happened to their money.”

He added, “We thought originally we were bailing out AIG. Then later on … we learned that the money flowed through AIG to a few big banks, and now we know that the money went from these few big banks to dozens of financial institutions all around the world.”

Grassley said he was reserving judgment on the appropriateness of U.S. taxpayer money ending up overseas until he learns more about the 32 entities.

Goldman Sachs (GS) received $5.55 billion from the government in fall of 2008 as payment for then-worthless securities it held in AIG. Goldman had already hedged its risk that the securities would go bad. It had entered into agreements to spread the risk with the 32 entities named in Friday’s report.

Overall, Goldman Sachs received a $12.9 billion payout from the government’s bailout of AIG, which was at one time the world’s largest insurance company.

Goldman Sachs also revealed to the Senate Finance Committee that it would have received $2.3 billion if AIG had gone under. Other large financial institutions, such as Citibank, JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley, sold Goldman Sachs protection in the case of AIG’s collapse. Those institutions did not have to pay Goldman Sachs after the government stepped in with tax money.

Shouldn’t Goldman Sachs be expected to collect from those institutions “before they collect the taxpayers’ dollars?” Grassley asked. “It’s a little bit like a farmer, if you got crop insurance, you shouldn’t be getting disaster aid.”

Goldman had not disclosed the names of the counterparties it paid in late 2008 until Friday, despite repeated requests from Elizabeth Warren, chairwoman of the Congressional Oversight Panel.

“I think we didn’t get the information because they consider it very embarrassing,” Grassley said, “and they ought to consider it very embarrassing.”

Continue reading…USA Today

Hundreds of mortgage fraud lawsuits planned

Published: Saturday, July 24, 2010

By Jameson Cook, Macomb Daily Staff Writer

Macomb, Oakland cases in federal court but may return to state

Officials at an organization representing homeowners battling their mortgage lenders say hundreds more people in the tri-county area will join additional lawsuits.

Officials at Michigan Loan Compliance Advisory Group Inc. in Troy said they plan to file lawsuits including up to another 1,000 plaintiffs against financial institutions for deceptive lending, excessive fees and other wrongdoing in granting subprime mortgages.

That’s on top of the 88 plaintiffs representing 78 mortgages in Macomb and Oakland counties who through Michigan Loan Compliance sued more than two dozen banks for awarding inflated mortgages to borrowers.

“We’re not stopping,” said May Brikho, senior consultant at Michigan Loan Compliance.

“We’re trying to convince judges there is fraud, there is a scam. The banks are not the victims. They never lost anything.

“We are getting a lot of new plaintiffs who are out of a job and they do not qualify for loan modification. People are telling other people and they are contacting us.”

The pending cases in Macomb, Oakland and a third in Wayne County were filed in state circuit court, but have since been moved to U.S. District Court in Detroit.

However, Loan Compliance attorney Ziyad Kased has asked federal Judge Arthur Tarnow to return the Oakland case to Judge Colleen O’Brien in the Oakland court in Pontiac and said he believes federal Judge Nancy Edmunds on her own may return the Macomb case back to circuit Judge John Foster in Mount Clemens.

Kased said the Oakland case should remain in state court because all of the defendants and plaintiffs do not have different state residences, which is a requirement to get the case moved.

He said that Ocwen and Saxon must gain “concurrence” of the other defendants to warrant permanent transfer and that all of the defendants must be located outside the state.

Attorney Chantelle Neumann, representing Ocwen Loan Servicing LLC, named in the Macomb case, and Saxon Mortgage Co., named in the Oakland case, gained “removal” to federal court for the time being. Neumann said the defendants did not have to gain concurrence from other defendants because the plaintiffs improperly got together.

“Plaintiffs have aggregated their grievances into one mass action in an effort to evade federal jurisdiction,” said Neumann, a Rochester Hills-based lawyer also representing Saxon, in a legal brief.

Kased says the plaintiffs have similar claims.

“There were all victims of the same predatory lending practices listed in the complaint (inflated income, understated debt, manufactured debt to income ratios etc.),” Kased says in a court document.

He contends that the case should remain since three of the defendants are “domestic Michigan corporations.”

He also said that all but three mortgages in the Oakland case are affiliated with co-defendant Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems Inc., so there is a “common thread” among them.

Continue reading….MacombDaily

The US financial regulator’s own internal watchdog has widened his investigation of the civil fraud lawsuit brought against Goldman Sachs to include a focus on the timing of last week’s $550m (£356m) settlement.

By James Quinn
Published: 6:00AM BST 24 Jul 2010

When Denying Loan Mods, Loan Servicers Often Wrongly Blame Investors

by Karen Weise
ProPublica, Yesterday, 7:50 a.m.

Arthur and Alberta Bailey are about to lose their home near New Orleans, and their mortgage company says one thing stands in the way of relief: The investors who own their mortgage won’t allow any modifications.

It’s a story heard again and again across the country as desperate homeowners try to participate in a federal program created to foster loan modifications and prevent foreclosures. Loan servicers say their hands are tied by Wall Street.

Federal officials, bank officers, housing counselors and investors themselves say that excuse is cited far more often than is justified. In fact, they say, few mortgage deals include such restrictions.

Consider the case of the Baileys. Litton, a subsidiary of Goldman Sachs, services their loan, and Litton’s contract with investors has no clear language banning modifications. In fact, documents show that over 115 other mortgages [1] from the same investment pool have already been modified.

Even the representative of investors in the Baileys’ mortgage says only the servicer can decide when to modify loans. While he couldn’t comment on an individual case, Bank of New York Mellon spokesman Kevin Heine says it’s “misinformation” to say that investors make these decisions.

Servicers can pass the buck because one mortgage often involves many different companies. During the housing bubble, banks often sold mortgages to investors on Wall Street so they wouldn’t have to keep the loans on their own books, freeing them to make even more loans and protecting them from those that went bad. They then hired servicers to handle the day-to-day work of collecting payments from homeowners ­– and to decide when to modify loans. Now loan servicers have been inundated with requests from homeowners trying to avoid foreclosure through the government’s $75 billion mortgage modification program. The Treasury Department estimates that 1.7 million homeowners should qualify for help.

For homeowners, it can be difficult to understand who is responsible for what. This confusion gives servicers a ready excuse for refusing modifications.

Indeed, nobody knows the exact extent to which servicers are passing blame on to investors. Some housing counselors estimate that 10 percent of the denials they see are attributed to investors; others say they see as many as 40 percent. Either way, tens of thousands of homeowners may be affected, their attempts to modify their mortgage wrongly denied.

The prevalence of such false claims by servicers is a “legitimate concern,” said Laurie Maggiano, the Treasury Department’s director of policy for the modification program. “It’s been very frustrating for us.”

Investors are also dismayed, saying servicers are not acting in their best interests. “This is one of those rare alliances where investors and borrowers are on the same page,” according to Laurie Goodman, senior managing director at Amherst Securities, a brokerage firm that specializes in mortgage securities. She says investors have “zero vote” in determining individual loan modifications and, instead of foreclosures, prefer sustainable modifications that lower homeowners’ total debt.

Investor-owned mortgages represent more than a third of trial and permanent modifications in the government’s program [2]. Under the program, servicers must modify the loans of qualified [3] borrowers unless contracts with investors prohibit the modification, or if calculations [4] determine that the investors won’t benefit from a modification. Investors’ contracts rarely prohibit modifications, and at times, ProPublica found, they have been blamed for denials even though other mortgages owned by the same investors have been modified.Even when contracts with investors do have restrictions, servicers don’t appear to be following federal requirements that they ask investors for waivers to allow modifications.

Such requests “never happen,” says David Co, a director at Deutsche Bank’s department that oversees 1,600 residential securities, the complex bundles of mortgages sold to investors.

Treasury’s Maggiano says the government is investigating investor denials and considering greater consequences for servicers that wrongfully deny modifications. Servicers’ compliance and accountability have been a major problem for the government’s program. Treasury has threatened penalties before, but it hasn’t yet issued any [5].

Whose decision is it?

“The very phrase ‘investor restriction,’ I think, is deliberately confusing,” says Joseph Sant, an attorney with Staten Island Legal Services, which represents homeowners in foreclosure. “What we’re talking about are not business entities or people, but inert documents.”

Typically, financial institutions set up mortgage-backed securities as a trust — legally their own entities — and then sell bonds from the trust to investors, which can range from mutual funds to pension funds. At the same time, they sign up trustees to manage the security and hire divisions of their own banks or other companies to act as servicers that work directly with homeowners.

While servicers often tell homeowners that investors decide whose loans can be adjusted, Heine, the spokesman for Bank of New York Mellon, one of the largest trustees that administer mortgage securities, says the responsibility to modify loans “falls squarely to the servicer.”

And the contracts that servicers often blame are usually not a roadblock. A report by John Hunt, a law professor at the University of California, Davis, looked at contracts [6] (PDF) that covered three-quarters of the subprime loans securitized in 2006 and found that only 8 percent prohibited modifications outright. Almost two-thirds of the contracts explicitly gave servicers the authority to make modifications, particularly for homeowners who had defaulted or would likely default soon. The rest of the contracts did not address modifications.

Jeffrey Gentes, an attorney at the Connecticut Fair Housing Center who works with hundreds of homeowners across the state, estimates that in 80 percent of the cases in which he has seen the servicing contracts, no language prevents modifications as the servicers have claimed.

Homeowners’ advocates say that when they successfully disprove a contractual restriction, the servicer just gives another reason for denying the modification. “The investor is cited first until the borrower can prove it otherwise,” says Kevin Stein, associate director of the California Reinvestment Coalition, which helps low-income people and minority groups get access to financial services.

Sant, the Staten Island attorney, says a servicer told one client that the contract with investors forbade extending the length of the mortgage, one key way monthly payments can be reduced through government’s program. But the government has addressed the objection, ruling that if a servicer can’t extend the length of a mortgage, it can still give a modification and just add a balloon payment to the end of the loan. Sant pushed back on the servicer’s attorney, who dropped that reason for denial and instead said the homeowner had failed the computer model [4] that determines eligibility. Sant currently is reviewing the case to determine how to proceed.

Continue reading ….ProPublica

(UPDATED)

Angela Caputo on 07.23.10 at 10:41 AM |

(Originally published 7/22/10 at 5:20 p.m.) Chicagoan Rich Gregory figured it was only a matter of time before he’d hear from his bank after falling behind on his second mortgage. But when he was summonsed to foreclosure court in 2008, he realized his bank wasn’t interested in negotiating.

Gregory noticed something “goofy” about the summons. Attached to it was a copy of the server’s credentials, issued on the letterhead of former Cook County Circuit Court Clerk Morgan Finley, a man convicted of extortion and ousted from office more than two decades earlier. “I thought, ‘This guy’s not licensed. He’s not authorized to do it,” Gregory said.

Turns out that Cook County Judge Dorothy Kinnaird, who oversees the Chancery Division, issued a court order in June 2007, allowing lenders and servicers to sidestep the Cook County Sheriff’s office and hire private agencies to deliver foreclosure summons. The idea was to free up a flood of new foreclosure cases. Lawmakers had toyed with the idea decades earlier. Ultimately, they decided that having a neutral party – primarily the Sheriff’s office – delivering court documents would avert the sort of conflict that’s brewing in the Cook County court system. Homeowners are now challenging the legitimacy of their summonses, and some are saying that they were never called to court to plead their case.

We hear that a lawsuit is coming down to challenge the court’s use of special process servers.

As far as Marty Stack, legal council to the Sheriff’s office is concerned, these questionable summonses could threaten the legitimacy of potentially thousands of local foreclosure cases. “Basically, all of these people could come back to vacate their case,” Stack said. “The judge has no right to take away their due process.”

Continue reading…Chicagonow.com

SAN DIEGO, Jul 23, 2010 (BUSINESS WIRE) — Robbins Umeda LLP today announced that a class action has been commenced in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida (the “Court”) on behalf of purchasers of DJSP Enterprises, Inc. (“DJSP” or the “Company”) (DJSP 4.99, -0.09, -1.77%) common stock during the period between March 16, 2010 and May 27, 2010 (the “Class Period”).

DJSP is one of the largest providers of processing services for the mortgage and real estate industries in Florida and nationwide. The Company engages in providing non-legal services supporting real estate foreclosure, other related legal actions, and lender owned real estate services. The Company was founded in 1994 and is based in Plantation, Florida.

The complaint alleges that DJSP’s directors and officers issued materially false and misleading statements and failed to disclose adverse facts known to them regarding the Company’s business and financial results. As a result of these fiduciaries’ misstatements and omissions, DJSP’s stock traded at artificially inflated levels. The complaint charges DJSP and certain of its officers and directors with violations of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.

Specifically, the complaint alleges that on March 16, 2010, DJSP filed a 6-K with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in which it touted its quarterly results announced on March 11, 2010, and assured investors that regardless of the Obama Administration’s efforts to slow down real estate foreclosures, DSJP would continue to profit from continued defaults. Furthermore, investors were told that defaults would continue into subsequent years and that DJSP’s business would not be affected by government involvement in the mortgage market. Then in April 2010, one of DJSP’s largest clients began a foreclosure system conversion which substantially decreased the volume of foreclosures referred to the Company. Until that time, DJSP generated a significant amount of its revenue from the providing of ancillary services to referral clients.

According to the complaint, on May 27, 2010, the Company shocked the market by lowering its guidance for adjusted net income by $15 million to $17 million and for adjusted EBIDTA by $18 million to $22 million. DJSP attributed the lowered guidance to, (i) the foreclosure system conversion of one of its largest bank clients in April 2010, which resulted in a reduction in the referral of foreclosures filed; and (ii) a temporary slowdown in foreclosures due to governmental intervention programs. DJSP’s Executive Vice President and CEO explained that the reason this information was not conveyed to shareholders back in April 2010, was due to a belief that these issues would fix themselves.

If you wish to serve as lead plaintiff, you must move the Court no later than 60 days from July 20, 2010. If you wish to discuss this action or have any questions concerning this notice or your rights or interests, please contact Gregory E. Del Gaizo, Esq. of Robbins Umeda LLP, at 800-350-6003 or by e-mail at inquiry@robbinsumeda.com.

Any member of the putative class may move the Court to serve as lead plaintiff through counsel of their choice, or may choose to do nothing and remain an absent class member.

Robbins Umeda LLP is a California-based law firm, which has significant experience representing investors in securities fraud class actions, merger-related shareholder class actions, and shareholder derivative actions. For more information about the firm, please go to http://www.robbinsumeda.com.

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SOURCE: Robbins Umeda LLP

Robbins Umeda LLP
Gregory E. Del Gaizo, Esq., 800-350-6003
inquiry@robbinsumeda.com

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By Lynn E. Szymoniak, Esq. Ed., Fraud Digest (www.frauddigest.com) July 18, 2010

These are highlights from the deposition of Jeffrey B. Stephan, taken June 7, 2010, in a foreclosure case in Maine, Federal National Mortgage Association v. Nicole M. Bradbury, et al., Maine District Court, District Nine, Division of Northern Cumberland, Docket No. BRI-RE-09-65. The deposition was taken by Attorney Thomas Cox of Portland, Maine.

Jeffrey Stephan says his current title is team leader of the document execution team for GMAC. He estimates that he signs between 8,000 and 12,000 documents monthly. He supervises a team of 14 employees.

Mortgage Assignments and Affidavits in support of Summary Judgment signed by Stephan have been used by GMAC, FANNIE & FREDDIE in over 100,000 foreclosure cases.

“LPS” in the last line refers to Lender Processing Services in Jacksonville, Florida.

In a previous deposition, Stephan stated that the notaries who notarize his signature are often not actually present in the room with him when he signs documents.

Despite all of the mounting evidence and admissions, Jeffrey Stephan, Scott Anderson, Bryan Bly, Linda Green, Erica Johnson-Seck, Christina Trowbridge and the other “bank officers” employed by the companies serving the securitized
mortgage-backed trust industry will be back at their desks Monday morning, pens (or rubber stamps) in hand.

Page 16-17, Lines 17-25, 2-11

Q: What training have you received?

A: I received side-by-side training from another team leader to instruct me on how to review the documents when they are received from my staff.

Q: Who was that person?

A: That person, at the time, I believe, was a gentleman named Kenneth Ugwuadu. U-G-W-U-A-D-U. He is no longer with GMAC.

Q: How long did that training last?

A: Three days.

Q: Were there any written or printed training materials or manuals used as apart of that training?

A: No.

Page 20, Lines 19-24:

Q.: In your capacity as the team leader for the document execution team, do you have any role in the foreclosure process, other than the signing of documents?

A: No.

Page 54, Lines 12-25:

Q: When you sign a summary judgment affidavit, do you check to see if all of the exhibits are attached to it?

A: No.

Q. Does anybody in your department check to see if all the exhibits are attached to it at the time that it is presented to you for your signature?

A: No.

Q: When you sign a summary judgment affidavit, do you inspect any exhibits attached to it?

A: No.

Page 62-63, Lines 23-25, 2-6:

Q: Is it fair to say when you sign a summary judgment affidavit, you don’t know what information it contains, other than the figures that are set forth within it?

A: Other than the borrower’s name, and if I have signing authority for that entity, that is correct.

Page 69, Lines 2-20:

Q: Mr. Stephan, referring you again to the bottom line on Page 1 of Exhibit 1, it states: I have under my custody and control, the records relating to the mortgage transaction referenced below.

It’s correct, is it not, that you did not have in your custody any records of GMAC at the time that you signed a summary judgment affidavit?

A: I have the electronic record. I do not have papers.

Q: You have access to a computer, is that what you mean?

A: Yes.
(objections omitted)

Page 45, Lines 2-11:

Q: Mr. Stephan, do you recall testifying in your Florida deposition in December with regard to your employees, and you said, quote, they do not go into the system and verify that the information is accurate?

A: That is correct.

Page 41, Line 19:

Q: Do your employees have any direct communication with outside counsel?

A: Yes, through the LPS System.

Please click on Fraud Digest’s logo to read more articles like this.

Here is the Deposition Below:

Via: 4closurefraud

[ipaper docId=33129394 access_key=key-2ml8jt9qwzgk3qgg0qr0 height=600 width=600 /]

Attorney / Trustee Network/ FORECLOSURE MILLS

NetDirector provides a centralized data exchange for a growing network of attorneys and trustees as they realize the value of this unique solution. The current network represents participants in 49 states with both judicial and non-judicial law practices. As critical mass builds, attorneys and trustees have more leverage over banks, service providers, and other trading partners to move toward standards and provide product/service enhancements. The following attorneys/trustees currently subscribe to the NetDirector Data Exchange:

Albertelli Law, P.L. (AL, GA & FL)
Baer, Timberlake, Coulson & Cates, P.C. (OK)
Barrett, Daffin, & Frappier, L.L.P. (GA)
Barrett, Daffin, Frappier, Treder & Weiss, L.L.P. (CA)
Barrett, Daffin, Frappier, Turner & Engel, L.L.P. (TX)
Bendett & McHugh, P.C. (CT, MA, ME, NH, RI & VT)
Ben-Ezra & Katz, P.A. (FL)
Buonassissi, Henning & Lash P.C. (DC, MD & VA)
Cal-Western Reconveyance (AZ, CA, HI, ID, NV, OR, TX, UT & WA)
Camner, Lipsitz & Poller (FL)
Castle, Meinhold & Stawiarski, L.L.C. (CO, NM, NV, UT & WY)
Clay Chapman Iwamura Pulice & Nervell (HI)
Codilis & Associates, P.C. (IL)
Codilis & Stawiarski, P.C. (TX)
Codilis, Stawiarski & Moody, P.C. (MO)
Cohn, Goldberg & Deutsch, L.L.C. (DC & MD)
Dale & Decker, L.L.C. (CO)
Davidson Fink, L.L.P. (NY)
Dean Morris, L.L.P. (LA)
Doyle Legal Corporation, P.C. (IN)
Dunakey & Klatt, P.C. (IA)
Fein, Such, & Crane, P.C. (NY)
Fein, Such, Kahn & Shepard, P.C. (NJ)
Feiwell & Hannoy, P.C. (IN)
Finkel Law Offices, L.L.C. (SC)
Fisher & Shapiro, L.L.P. (IL)
Florida Default Law Group, P.L. (FL)
Freedman, Anselmo, Lindberg & Rappe, L.L.C. (IL)
Friedman & MacFadyen, P.A. (DC, MD, & VA)
Gilbert McGrotty Group, P.A. (FL)
Goldbeck, McCafferty & McKeever (NJ & PA)
Gray & Associates, L.L.P. (WI)
Greenspoon Marder, P.A. (FL)
Harmon Law Offices, P.C. (MA, RI, & NH)
Hellerstein & Shore, L.L.C. (CO)
Hudnall, Cohn, Fyvolent & Shaver, P.C. (GA)
Johnson & Freedman, L.L.C. (GA)
Kass, Shuler, Solomon, Spector, Foyle & Singer, P.A. (FL)
Kivell, Rayment & Francis, P.C. (OK)
Korn Law Firm, P.A. (SC)
Law Office of Patrick D. Hendershott, L.L.C. (OH)
Law Office of Ira T. Nevel, L.L.C. (IL)
Law Offices of Daniel C. Consuegra (FL)
Law Offices of Marshall C. Watson, P.C. (FL)
LOGS Network (AR, DC, FL, GA, IN, IL, KY, MD, MN, NY, OH, OR, PA, TN & VA)
Lundberg & Associates (UT)
Mackoff Kellogg Law Firm (MT, ND & SD)
Martin & Brunavs (GA)
McCabe, Weisberg & Conway, P.C. (CT, DC, MD, NJ, NY, PA & VA)
McCalla, Raymer, L.L.C. (AL, GA, TN & TX)
Morris & Associates (MS)
National Default Exchange, L.P. (CA, GA, IN, MI, MN & TX)
Nectar Projects, Inc. (VA)
Northwest Trustee Services, Inc. (CA, OR, WA, HI, ID, & MT)
O’Kelley & Sorohan, L.L.C. (GA)
Partridge Snow & Hahn, L.L.P. (MA, RI)
Pendergast & Jones, P.C. (GA)
Pierce & Associates, P.C. (IL)
Pite Duncan, L.L.P. (AZ, CA, HI, ID, NV, OR, TX, UT & WA)
Potestivo & Associates, P.C. (MI)
Powers Kirn, L.L.C. (NJ)
Powers, Kirn & Javardian, L.L.C. (PA)
Prommis Solutions, L.L.C. (All)
Regional Trustee Service Corporation (AK, AZ, CA, ID, MT, NV, OR & WA)
Reimer, Arnovitz, Chernek & Jeffrey, Co. L.P.A. (OH)
Richard M. Squire & Associates, L.L.C. (PA)
Robert J. Hopp & Associates, L.L.C. (CO)
Rogers Townsend & Thomas, P.C. (NC)
Routh Crabtree Olsen, P.S. (CA, OR, WA, HI, ID, & MT)
Routh Cooper Castle Olsen, L.L.C. (AZ)
Routh Crabtree, A.P.C. (AK)
Rutherford Mulhall, P.A. (FL)
Samuel I. White, P.C. (DC, MD, VA & WV)
Scott Law Firm, P.A. (SC)
Shapiro & Burson, L.P.P. (DC, MD & VA))
Shapiro & DeNardo, L.L.C. (PA)
Shapiro, DiCaro & Barak, L.P.P. (NY)
Shapiro & Fishman, L.P.P. (FL)
Shapiro & Kirsch, L.P.P. (AR & TN)
Shapiro & Sutherland, L.L.C. (OR)
Shapiro & Swertfeger, L.P.P. (GA)
Shapiro, Van Ess, Phillips & Barragate, L.P.P. (IN, KY & OH)
Shapiro & Zielke, L.P.P. (MN)
Shechtman Halperin Savage, L.L.P. (CT, MA, ME, NH, RI & VT)
Sirote & Permutt, P.C. (AL)
Smith, Hiatt & Diaz, P.A. (FL)
South & Associates, P.C. (MO, KS & NE)
Spear & Hoffman, P.A. (FL)
Stein, Weiner & Roth, L.L.P. (NY)
The Cooper Castle Firm, L.L.P. (NV)
The Law Offices of Hutchens, Senter & Britton, P.A. (NC)
Tiffany & Bosco, P.A. (AZ)
Trott & Trott, P.C. (MI)
Weiss Spicer Cash, P.L.L.C. (TN)
Weltman, Weinberg & Reis CO. L.P.A. (IL, IN, KY, MI, NJ, OH & PA)
Wilford & Geske, P.A. (MN)
Wilson & Associates P.L.L.C. (AR & TN)

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