Read With Care… because almost all banks/servicers use the same LPS – Fidelity systems. 🙂
6 Q Tell me about the actual act of signing these 7 affidavits. When you received them from the person who 8 distributes the documents, would they come to you in 9 physical form? 10 A Yes. 11 Q Okay. And would there be one or a stack of 12 them, or how would they come to you? 13 A It could be either. 14 Q Okay. Was it more common than not to get more 15 than one? 16 A No. 17 Q Was there a certain time of day those would be 18 delivered to you? 19 A I usually got them in the morning. 20 Q Would the notary be right there with you? 21 A No. 22 Q Where was the notary? 23 A On the same floor, in the same area. 24 Q So the notary would not watch you sign the 25 document?
1 A No.
[…]
20 Q Tell me about the LPS Fidelity system. Is 21 that one system or are those — is that one title for 22 the same system? 23 A Actually, LPS owns or has both systems. They 24 have the Fidelity system and the LPS desktop management 25 system.
1 Q And in your course of sending affidavits 2 sometimes you would consult both of those or one of 3 those? 4 A Yes. Primarily the — our system of record. 5 Q The desktop? 6 A No. 7 Q Or the Fidelity? 8 A The Fidelity. 9 Q What can you tell me about the Fidelity 10 system? Does that have the entire payment history? 11 A Yes.
[…]
10 Q Would Fidelity have — besides the full 11 payment history, what other kinds of things would be on 12 the Fidelity system? 13 A The date the note was signed, the origination 14 balance, the principal balance, the date of default — 15 or actually the contractual due date because it’s not 16 always defaulted. 17 Q Anything else? 18 A In bankruptcy we had to post petition due 19 date; the contractual payment and any pending payment 20 changes; the escrow information. 21 Q What about servicing notes, would that be on 22 the Fidelity system? 23 A Yes. 24 Q Now, besides those, anything else? 25 A Yeah, there’s a lot of information on
1 Fidelity. I wouldn’t be able to name it all. 2 Q You said Fidelity contains the date the note 3 was signed; is that right? 4 A Yes. 5 Q Does it contain actual copies? 6 A Not in Fidelity, no. 7 Q Okay. So, in other words, so we are clear, 8 you wouldn’t click on Fidelity to look at a copy of the 9 note; is that right? 10 A No. We have a different system that does 11 that.
[…]
4 Q Okay. What’s in the LPS desktop management 5 system? 6 A Communication to the law firms.
[…]
19 Q Okay. Besides correspondence and besides the 20 milestones, anything else on the LPS desktop management 21 system? 22 MR. ELLISON: Object to the form. 23 You can answer. 24 MR. ZACKS: What’s wrong with the form? 25 MR. ELLISON: She didn’t say, correspondence.
1 She said, communications to law firms. 2 BY MR. ZACKS: 3 Q You can answer. 4 A Yeah, they have documents in that — either 5 documents from us or we would get documents from them 6 through LPS. 7 Q From? 8 A The law firm. 9 Q And by “law firm,” you’re talking about 10 outside foreclosure counsel; is that right? 11 A Correct. 12 Q Or could it be any other kind of counsel, or 13 bankruptcy counsel? 14 A Yes.
[…]
9 Q On the Fidelity system, you said that would 10 contain all the payment records, right? 11 A Yes. 12 Q Would that contain payment records from 13 previous servicers, if there were any? 14 A I don’t think so. 15 Q Where would those records be? 16 A They are in a separate — they’re stored 17 separately. 18 Q Is it a separate database system? 19 A Yeah. 20 Q Okay. 21 A Yes. 22 Q What’s that? 23 A I think it’s called Doctrak. 24 Q Doctrak? 25 A D-O-C-T-R-A-K.
[…]
1 Q In your course of signing affidavits of 2 indebtedness, did you ever review the Doctrack system? 3 A No. 4 Q Who is in charge of maintaining the Doctrack 5 system? 6 A I don’t know. 7 Q Who is in charge of the standards in audits 8 for the Doctrak system? 9 A I don’t know.
[…]
24 Q Do you receive anything else from Amber, 25 besides the affidavit itself?
1 A Receive any? 2 Q Sure. She drops off an affidavit on your 3 desk, right? 4 A Yes. 5 Q Is there anything else, along with that 6 affidavit, that she would normally drop off for you? 7 A I don’t understand what you’re asking me. I 8 don’t know what — 9 Q Sure. Would she drop off, you know, the 10 origination file attached to the affidavit, or — 11 A No. 12 Q Would there be anything attached to that 13 affidavit? 14 A Sometimes the — no. I would just be 15 speculating. I don’t remember. 16 Q Along with the affidavit, would there be any 17 specific instructions for you to sign or review or 18 anything like that? 19 A No. 20 Q Just the affidavit itself? 21 A Yes.
[…]
10 Q Okay. And did you — and you’ve already said 11 you wouldn’t check to see if Fannie Mae or Freddie owned 12 that loan, right? 13 A No. 14 Q Okay. Would you check to see if anybody else 15 owned that loan? 16 A No. 17 Q Do you know if anyone did? 18 A I don’t know. 19 Q Did you ever verify a complaint that had a 20 count that said a note was lost? 21 A Yes. 22 Q Okay. And did you look for the note yourself? 23 A No. 24 Q Did you talk to anyone about looking for the 25 note?
1 A No. 2 Q What did you do to verify that a note was lost 3 or misplaced? 4 A Not usually anything.
[…]
7 Q You don’t need special permission to see who 8 the owner or investor is, right? 9 A Correct. 10 Q Would you look at any internal servicing 11 records to determine who the owner or investor was prior 12 to signing affidavits of indebtedness? 13 A Not always, no. 14 Q Okay. Ever? 15 A I can’t say.
The stink is growing around the state’s largest foreclosure mill.
The Steven J. Baum law firm, which last month agreed to pay a $2 million fine to settle a federal probe into bogus foreclosure case filings, has now been barred by federal mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from getting any more referrals of home loan defaults owned by either company.
In addition, the 70-lawyer firm is linked to the first criminal case brought against alleged robo-signers.
The criminal case was brought by the Nevada attorney general against two title officers — Gary Trafford and Gerri Sheppard — charged with forging signatures on 606 foreclosure-related mortgage documents.
Action Date: October 24, 2011 Location: West Palm Beach, FL
HURRICANE CHERYL DESTROYS LAND RECORDS IN PALM BEACH COUNTY
In the six month period from September 1, 2008 through February 28, 2009, 502 mortgage assignments, signed by Cheryl Samons, were filed in the official records of Palm Beach County, FL.
Samons was the office manager for the Law Offices of David J. Stern, but she signed as a MERS officer.
Mortgage-backed trusts were the primary beneficiary of these Samons Assignments.
Mortgage Assignments Signed by Cheryl Samons Filed in Palm Beach County from September, 2008, through February, 2009:
Multiplied by three, in the 18-month period from July 4, 2008 though January 4, 2009, Samons is likely to have signed 1,506 Assignments.
This is the same 18-month period that 1,742 Docx Assignments were being filed in Palm Beach County. These had a stated mortgage value of $560,239,797 or an average mortgage value of $321,607 per assignment.
Samons Palm Beach County assignments filed from July 4, 2008 through January 4, 2009 have an estimated value of $484,340,182, nearly half a billion dollars.
This does not include the assignments signed by other Stern employees, associate Beth Cerni or paralegal Carol Wasserman.
The combined value of mortgages, primarily transferred to mortgage-backed trusts, for one county for one 18-month period: $1,044,579,939.
While Docx Assignments were only filed for 18 months in Palm Beach County, Samons assignments appeared regularly from 2007 through 2010.
Page 1: American Home Servicing Inc. says that over 30,000 assignments of mortgage in Texas and across America are fraudulent—“improperly executed, notarized and recorded”.
Page 2: American Home renames robosigners “Special Officers” to suggest the robosigners were legitimately signing the assignments of mortgages.
Wow, Jones Day just created a huge mess for its client and banks generally if anyone is alert enough to act on it.
The lawsuit in question is American Home Mortgage Servicing Inc. v Lender Processing Services. It hasn’t gotten all that much attention (unless you are on the LPS deathwatch beat) because to most, it looks like yet another beauty contest between Cinderella’s two ugly sisters.
The very fact that this item “LPS fires back with motion seeking sanctions against Alabama attorney,” was treated as a news story by Housing Wire is further proof that Housing Wire is above all committed to promoting client and mortgage industry interests and only incidentally engages in random acts of journalism.
LPS is desperate to create a shred of positive-looking noise in the face of pending fines under a Federal consent decree, mounting private litigation, and loss of client business under the continued barrage of bad press. Housing Wire, who has LPS as one of its top advertisers, is clearly more than willing to treat a virtual non-event as newsworthy to help an important meal ticket.
If you know anything about litigation, particularly when small fry square off against large companies, it’s standard for the well funded party to engage in a war of attrition against the underdog. One overused device is to threaten or file for sanctions. Even when they are weak or groundless, they still waste opposing counsel’s time and energy.
While some lenders do utilize web-based proprietary systems (MortgageServ, Res.net, etc) for insurance and foreclosure tracking, the majority of the lenders in the US (including Bank of America, Aurora Loan Services, and OneWest) utilize the Fidelity LPS system, which is maintained by Fidelity National Financial. It seems almost impossible to believe all of our banks would allow a single point of failure in our nation’s financial systems, however a certain level of cockiness is certainly warranted after successfully pulling off the largest series of cons in our nation’s history.
The LPS system can be accessed several ways. Using Internet Explorer, Balboa and Assurant agents are able to query every field within the system via the web based Lending Portal Login for all of their clients. The information is then used to build all of the AxsPoint/Cool reports utilized to track Force Placed and REO information on the CCS & PAC systems. The tracker then places the information on Clientsource for the servicer to view.
These systems are all web-based, because while the banksters do practice “honor amongst thieves,” each individual banks still likes to hide a certain level of information from each other to allow the possibility of stealing from each other while stealing from you. Web-based systems allow them to control the information visible to each other.
Q. So this doesn’t necessarily mean
3 that someone physically picked up the file
4 from LPS; correct?
5 A. My understanding is that this is
6 a note that automates when the attorney
7 has confirmed receipt through new image.
8 Whether that’s manual or not, I couldn’t
9 say based on the notes. And then new
10 image stamps into the LPS Desktop
11 confirming that NIE ID number 0966 and on
12 was pulled in, those documents were
13 received by the attorney.
14 Q. Does LPS have any employees at
15 the Steven J. Baum law firm?
16 A. Not that I’m aware of.
<SNIP>
Q. This is from the Steven J. Baum
law firm; correct?
3 A. It appears to be.
4 Q. Would you have any reason to
5 doubt that?
6 A. No.
7 Q. And could you tell me what this
8 entry represents.
9 A. To the best of my understanding,
10 they have user has completed a POA
11 requisite data form, exactly what it says.
12 I guess I couldn’t give you a full answer.
13 I don’t manage this process, but it
14 appears they are requesting something.
15 Q. So just start me off, POA
16 underscore requisite, what does that stand
17 for?
18 A. I could guess.
19 Q. Is that a category or a type of
20 document?
21 A. Again, I could guess.
22 Q. I don’t want you to guess, but
23 can you make an educated guess?
24 A. Power of attorney.
25 Q. Who at LPS would have a better
understanding of this process? You said
3 it’s not really you.
4 A. I don’t know.
5 Q. Let’s go to entry two hundred
6 fifty-one dated 11/4/08. User has updated
7 the system for the following. Power of
8 attorney requested, completed on 11/4/08.
9 Do you see that?
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. Can you tell me what that entry
12 is.
13 A. I could give you an educated
14 guess.
15 Q. Go ahead.
16 A. My educated guess would be the
17 attorney has requested a power of
18 attorney.
19 Q. From whom?
20 A. From that note, I couldn’t say
21 for certain. But below the secondary
22 note, it seems to indicate JP Morgan to
23 Scott Walter.
24 Q. Who is asking for that? It’s
25 kind of written in the passive.
Who’s actually asking for the
3 power of attorney?
4 A. Appears to me from the notes
5 that Steven J. Baum’s office is making
6 this request.
<SNIP>
A. It appears to be Steven J. Baum
3 noting the file, memorializing that they
4 have prepared an assignment, they have
5 uploaded it into the LPS Desktop to be
6 reviewed and executed, and that it isn’t
7 back yet. 8 Q. What does it mean assignment was
9 received not signed, who’s receiving that?
10 A. I wouldn’t know.
11 Q. Well, do you read this as the
12 assignment is not signed?
13 A. I read it as an assignment is
14 not signed or, let me better state what I
15 meant to say, is that a signed assignment
16 hasn’t been received by Steven J. Baum. 17 Which assignment though I couldn’t tell
18 from this note.
19 Q. Would this assignment be signed
20 by LPS; is that what this is saying?
21 A. It appears that the attorney is
22 stating that.However, I can’t tell you
23 whether LPS would have signed this
24 document or not without seeing the
25 document that the note’s referencing.
The latest bombshell follows with a brilliant 325 Pg. Deposition of LPS/ Fidelity’s Bill Newland.
Feel free to upload docs using email a tip link located above the site.
EXCERPTS:
2 Q Sure. Are there any attorneys who are not
3 members of the Fidelity — or the LPS attorney network
4 who can access your Process Management system?
5 A Not that I’m aware of.
6 Q And is it a fact that the only attorneys who
7 are using Process Management are attorneys who have
8 signed a referral agreement with LPS?
9 A That would be correct.
10 Q So, while your clients are free to choose
11 whomever as a foreclosing attorney, if they are an MSP
12 user and they are an LPS — they have an LPS agreement
13 with you for Default Solutions, the only attorneys
14 available on LPS system are attorneys who have signed
15 a contract with LPS?
16 A That have signed a contract with LPS, yes.
<SNIP>
3 Q So I just want to be sure. What you’re
4 testifying to is that there is no compensation ever
5 paid by the servicer to LPS Default Solutions for all
6 this work that it does on behalf of the servicer with
7 respect to the foreclosure?
8 A No.
9 Q There is compensation or there is not
10 compensation?
11 A No, there’s no compensation.
12 Q Is it your testimony then that the only fees
13 which LPS Default Solutions collects with respect to
14 the foreclosure of any given loan is the
15 administrative support fee charged to the network
16 attorneys?
17 A Yes.
18 Q And the division of LPS Default Solutions
19 which we are here about today and which you are
20 testifying as a 30(b)(6) representative, the only
21 source of income it derives for its work with respect
22 to foreclosure is the administrative support fee?
23 A That’s my understanding.
updated 12/6/2010 2:10:09 PM ET 2010-12-06T19:10:09
.
JACKSONVILLE, Florida — Lender Processing Services is riding the waves of foreclosures sweeping the United States, but in late October its CEO, Jeff Carbiener, found himself needing to reassure investors in the $2.8 billion company.
Although profits were rolling in, LPS’s stock had taken a hit in the wake of revelations that mortgage companies across the country had filed fraudulent documents in foreclosures cases. Earlier in the year, the company, which handles more than half of the nation’s foreclosures, had disclosed that it was under federal criminal investigation and admitted that employees at a small subsidiary had falsely signed foreclosure documents.
Still, Carbiener told the Wall Street analysts in an October 29 conference call that LPS’s legal concerns were overblown, and the stock has jumped 13 percent since its close the day before the call.
But a Reuters investigation shows that LPS’s legal woes are more serious than he let on. Public records reveal that the company’s LPS Default Solutions unit produced documents of dubious authenticity in far larger quantities than it has disclosed, and over a much longer timespan.
Questionable signing and notarization practices weren’t limited to its subsidiary, called DocX, but occurred in at least one of LPS’s own offices, mortgage assignments filed in county recorders’ offices show. And rather than halt such practices after the federal investigation got underway, the company shifted the signing to firms with which it has close business ties. LPS provided personnel to work in the new signing operations, according to information from an LPS spokeswoman and court records including an October 21 ruling by a judge in Brooklyn, New York. Records in county recorders’ offices, and in the judge’s opinion, show that “robosigning” and preparation of apparently false documents went on at these sites on a large scale.
In one instance, it helped set up a massive signing operation at the nearby office of a major client, a spokeswoman for the client, American Home Mortgage Servicing, confirmed. LPS-hired notaries who worked there said in interviews that troves of documents were improperly handled. They said that about 200 affidavits per day were robosigned during the two months the two notaries remained there.
A spokeswoman for LPS confirmed to Reuters that it had helped other firms establish operations that performed the same function. LPS spokeswoman Michelle Kersch didn’t specify which firms. But beginning early in 2010, county recorders’ records show, signing shifted also to law firms under contract with LPS.
Interviews with key players and court records also show that pending investigations and lawsuits pose a bigger threat to the company than Carbiener let on.
The criminal investigation in Jacksonville by federal prosecutors and the Federal Bureau of Investigation is intensifying. The same goes for a separate inquiry by the Florida attorney general’s office. Individuals with direct knowledge of the federal inquiry said that prosecutors have impaneled a grand jury, begun calling witnesses and subpoenaed records from LPS.
The company confirmed to Reuters that it has hired Paul McNulty, former deputy U.S. attorney general in the George W. Bush administration, to represent it in the investigation. A spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s office declined to comment on the probe.
The U.S. Comptroller of the Currency’s office, which is responsible for supervising national banks, also announced in November that it had teamed up with the Federal Reserve to conduct an on-site examination of LPS.
Exhibit from the Harris CaseSFF published in 3/2010:
Excerpts from complaint:
1. This case involves the undisclosed kickback/sharing of bankruptcy creditor attorney fees to a non-law firm corporate entity.
2. Mortgage servicers routinely appear in this Court seeking relief from the automatic stay or in opposition to proposed chapter 13 plans. The Mortgage servicers appear through counsel who announce their appearance on behalf of those mortgage servicers.
3. But, unbeknownst to this Court, those counsel often answer not to the mortgage
servicers on whose behalf they appear, rather these counsel answer to an undisclosed
middleman such as the Defendants.
4. Defendants provide what is known in the mortgage-servicing industry as default
servicing. Loans which are subject to default servicing include loans which may be
subject to foreclosure and loans which are in bankruptcy.
5. Some of the services which are provided by default servicers such as the Defendants
include: 1) executing documents on behalf of the original servicer; 2) ordering and
providing broker price opinions; 3) track and provide fees for payoffs and
refinancings, and; 4) provide centralized billing to vendors.
6. An additional function of default servicing is the identification and retention of legal
services which may be necessary for any particular mortgage in default, e.g. noticing
and posting a property for foreclosure or seeking relief from the automatic stay in a
bankruptcy proceeding.
7. In managing the performance of the legal services for their mortgage servicing
clients, Defendants require law firms to execute a “Network Agreement,” which
details the agreement for services between the Defendants and the particular law firm.
8. The claims covered in this Complaint relate to the illegal fixing of fees in the
bankruptcy context and the requirement that law firms that execute the “Network
Agreement” to kickback a contractual prearranged fixed portion of their attorney fees
to the Defendant.
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