2010 October 11 | FORECLOSURE FRAUD

Archive | October 11th, 2010

After Foreclosure, a Focus on Title Insurance

Posted on 11 October 2010. Tags: affidavit, assignment of mortgage, auction, defect, family, foreclosure fraud, forgery, homeowner, land record, lemon, Old Republic Title, short sale, title flaw, Title insurance, unlawful foreclosure

By RON LIEBER
Published: October 8, 2010

When home buyers and people refinancing their mortgages first see the itemized estimate for all the closing costs and fees, the largest number is often for title insurance.

This moment is often profoundly irritating, mysterious and rushed — just like so much of the home-buying process. Lenders require buyers to have title insurance, but buyers are often not sure who picked the insurance company. And the buyers are so exhausted by the gauntlet they’ve already run that they’re not interested in spending any time learning more about the policies and shopping around for a better one.

Besides, does anyone actually know people who have had to collect on title insurance? It ultimately feels like a tax — an extortionate one at that — and not a protective measure.

But all of the sudden, the importance of title insurance is becoming crystal-clear. In recent weeks, big lenders like GMAC Mortgage, JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America have halted many or all of their foreclosure proceedings in the wake of allegations of sloppiness, shortcuts or worse. And a potential nightmare situation has emerged that has spooked not only homeowners but lawyers, title insurance companies and their investors.

What would happen if scores of people who had lost their homes to foreclosure somehow persuaded a judge to overturn the proceedings? Could they somehow win back the rights to their homes, free and clear of any mortgage? But they may not be able to simply move back into their home at that point. Banks, after all, have turned around and sold some of those foreclosed homes to nice young families reaching out for a bit of the American dream. Would they simply be put out on the street? And then what?

The answer to that last question may depend on whether those new homeowners have title insurance, because people who buy a home without a mortgage can choose to go without a policy.

Title insurance covers you in case people turn up months or years after you buy your home saying that they, in fact, are the rightful owners of the house or the land, or at least had a stake in the transaction. (The insurance may cover you in other instances as well, relating to easements and other matters, but we’ll leave those aside for now.)

Continue reading…NEW YORK TIMES

Posted in assignment of mortgage, foreclosure, foreclosure fraud, foreclosures, Old Republic Title, STOP FORECLOSURE FRAUD, title company, Title insurance2 Comments

FL Attorney General Files A Motion for Rehearing to Judge’s Ruling in Shapiro & Fishman Investigation

Posted on 11 October 2010. Tags: appeal, assignment of mortgage, assignment of mortgage fraud, bill mccollum, Cheryl Samons, djsp enterprises, foreclosure, foreclosure fraud, judge jack cox, june clarkson, law offices of david J. stern plantation florida 33324, law offices of marshall c. watson, MERS, MORTGAGE ELECTRONIC REGISTRATION SYSTEMS INC., rehearing, Shapiro and Fishman, theresa edwards

Attorney General McCollum I applaud you for STANDING UP for Florida!

Assistant AG’s June M. Clarkson and Theresa B. Edwards what an amazing job! Thank you.

Investigate the law suit Shapiro and Stern had against each other…You might just find missing pieces there.

The facts are the facts…crystal clear. This glass is not half full but spilling out the rim of the glass!

Attorney General Bill McCollum today filed a Motion for Rehearing on last week’s ruling by Circuit Judge Jack Cox that the Attorney General could not investigate the Shapiro & Fishman law firm for the firm’s alleged involvement in presenting fabricated documents to the courts in foreclosure actions to obtain final judgments against homeowners. The Attorney General is currently investigating four law firms, The Law Offices of Marshall C. Watson, P.A.; Shapiro & Fishman, LLP, the Law Offices of David J. Stern, P.A., and Florida Default Law Group, PL for allegedly engaging in these practices.

Scribd

Posted in CONTROL FRAUD, corruption, foreclosure, foreclosure fraud, foreclosure mills, foreclosures, forgery, investigation, Law Offices Of David J. Stern P.A., law offices of Marshall C. Watson pa, shapiro & fishman pa, STOP FORECLOSURE FRAUD, trade secrets1 Comment

What is Alter Ego Liability?

Posted on 11 October 2010. Tags: alter ego, corporation, doctrine, equitable, foreclosure, foreclosure fraud, fraudulent transfers, law, litigants, pierce the corporate veil, relationships, subsidiaries

THIS IS NOT Intended to Be Construed or Relied upon as COMPETENT LEGAL ADVICE—Readers are urged to obtain competent legal representation to review their facts. I am not an attorney and this is not legal advice. I’m trying to gather a few things in order for research…that’s all.

This is very similar to the notion of piercing the corporate veil (aside from certain technical distinctions that are being ignored for the purpose of this discussion). Owners of corporations (i.e., its shareholders) are generally not personally liable for debts, losses and liabilities of the business itself, because of limited liability. However, if those owners have acted in a way where their business is really just a shell, and not an entirely separate legal entity, a court may decide that the business is simply an alter ego, meaning the owners should be held personally liable because of their wrongful acts.

There are many things that a court will look at in determining whether alter ego liability should be applied. Typical factors include (but are not limited to) whether the company kept its own records, whether there were shares (for a corporation) or units (for an LLC) that were actually issued, whether the owners co-mingled their finances with the business entity, whether there were actually corporate directors or LLC managers running the business, how legal formalities were followed and whether the owners used the business for personal purposes. It is often a case-by-case situation, and the key here is that you should take every precaution to run your business in full compliance with the legally required formalities and use the business in a proper way in order to avoid such alter ego liability.

Uniform Fraudulent Transfer Act

Successor liability claims are often paired with alleged violations under a state law adaptation or adoption of the Uniform Fraudulent Transfer Act (“UFTA”),5such as the Delaware Uniform Fraudulent Transfer Act (“DUFTA”). Some typical factual scenarios that give rise to a successor liability claim mirror those for a claim under UFTA. For instance, a violation of DUFTA by transferring the assets of company A into company B to avoid liability, while the successor company B is a mere continuation of company A, as all of the assets were transferred, and company B retained the same management as company A, could trigger both exceptions three and four noted above as well as a fraudulent conveyance claim. See DEL. CODE ANN. tit. 6, § 1305.

DUFTA finds a fraudulent conveyance if the debtor made the transfer or incurred the obligation with “intent to hinder, delay or defraud any creditor of the debtor;” or “[w]ithout receiving a reasonably equivalent value in exchange for the transfer or obligation.” DEL. CODE ANN. tit. 6 §§ 1304(a)(2) and 1305(a); see also In re Hechinger Inc. Co. of Del., 327 B.R. 537, 551 (D. Del. 2005); China Res. Prods. (U.S.A.) v. Fayda Int’l, Inc., 856 F. Supp. 856, 863 (D. Del. 1994); In re MDIP, Inc., 332 B.R. 129, 132 (Bankr. D. Del. 2005). The debtor must also be engaged or about to engage in a business or a transaction for which the remaining assets of the debtor were “unreasonably small in relation to the business or transaction,” or intended, had a belief, or should have believed, that the debtor would “incur, debts beyond the debtor’s ability to pay as they became due.” In re MDIP, Inc., 332 B.R. at 132. If a creditor prevails on a claim under the DUFTA, the statute empowers the Court to appoint a receiver to take charge of the transferred asset or other property of the transferee. DEL. CODE ANN. tit. 6 § 1307(a).

Notably, intent under DUFTA can be found if the transfer or obligation was to an insider, if the debtor retained possession or control of the property transferred after the transfer, the transfer was of substantially all the debtor’s assets, the debtor removed or concealed assets, the debtor was insolvent or became insolvent shortly after the transfer was made or the obligation was incurred, the transfer occurred shortly before or shortly after a substantial debt was incurred, or the debtor transferred the essential assets of the business to a lienor who transferred the assets to an insider of the debtor. DEL. CODE ANN. tit. 6 § 1304(b). All of these facts, if present, would be useful in framing a successor liability claim as well.

Sources:

http://www.quizlaw.com/business_law/what_is_alter_ego_liability.php

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LIMITATIONS TO BANKRUPTCY ALTERNATIVES: SUCCESSOR LIABILITY, THE UNIFORM FRAUDULENT TRANSFER ACT, PIERCING THE CORPORATE VEIL, AND PERSISTENT LIABILITIES.1

Rafael X. Zahralddin-Aravena2
Elliott Greenleaf, Wilmington, Delaware

ALTER EGO liability

ALTER EGO DOCTRINE: ‘Pierce the Corporate Veil’

Posted in foreclosure, foreclosure fraud, foreclosures, forgery2 Comments

Florida Foreclosure Firm Fudged Forms, Ex-Paralegal Claims

Posted on 11 October 2010. Tags: 2010, AG # L10-3-1145, assignment of mortgage, Cheryl Samons, deposition, djsp enterprises, florida attorney general, foreclosure fraud, foreclosure mill, investigation, law offices of david J. stern plantation florida 33324, legal affairs, MERS, MORTGAGE ELECTRONIC REGISTRATION SYSTEMS INC., notary fraud, ProVest, robo signers, september 22, service, Tammie Lou Kapusta, transcript

By Phil Milford and Denise Pellegrini – Oct 9, 2010 12:01 AM ET

A former paralegal told Florida investigators that workers at a law firm that processed foreclosures signed paperwork without reading it, misdated records and skirted rules protecting homeowners in the military.

Tammie Lou Kapusta, who said she spent more than a year at the Law Offices of David J. Stern PA, made the accusations in a Sept. 22 interview with lawyers for Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum. In August, McCollum announced a probe of three law firms to see whether improper documents were created and filed with state courts to hasten the foreclosure process.

Jeffery Tew, a lawyer for the Stern firm, denied Kapusta’s claims.

Kapusta, who spoke under oath, said the Stern firm ballooned from 225 employees when she started in March 2008, to more than 1,100 when she was fired in July 2009. She described a disorganized workplace where documents got lost and mortgages were misfiled. The training process was “stupid and ridiculous,” she said.

“There were a lot of young kids working up there who really didn’t pay attention to what they were doing,” she said, according to a transcript. “We had a lot of people that were hired in the firm that were just hired as warm bodies.”

Kapusta’s statements were reported Oct. 7 in the Tampa Tribune. Tew, of Tew Cardenas LLP in Miami, said he wasn’t aware of the interview until it was released to the public.

“We didn’t get a chance to cross-examine her,” he said. “It was a one-sided statement by a disgruntled employee. There was a lot of animus and personal references, and she seeks to besmirch people’s reputation. The law firm denies there’s any accuracy in the charges.”

Jurisdiction Challenged

There’s a court hearing set for Oct. 12 to determine whether McCollum’s office has jurisdiction over the firm’s conduct, Tew said.

“This is a civil investigation, and the attorney general hasn’t made any conclusions,” Tew said.