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.
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.
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.
For you to understand a little more about “the 4 minute foreclosure” you first have to know some key players in the controversy surrounding the foreclosure process today. I included a few excerpts from an article written by Gerlad B. Alt for DS News March of 2007 that you will find at the end. I only wish MERS was included in this article because without this device none of this would have been made possible.
The Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (FHLMC), known as Freddie Mac, is a public government sponsored enterprise (GSE), headquartered in the Tyson’s Corner CDP in unincorporated Fairfax County, VirginiaFreddie Mac, one of America’s biggest buyers of home mortgages, is a stockholder-owned corporation chartered by Congress in 1970 to keep money flowing to mortgage lenders in support of home-ownership and rental housing.
Freddie Mac was the first investor to improve on the so-called standard timeframes by tightening the noose and imposing what seemed at the time like draconian and arbitrary standards for completion of legal actions for foreclosure and bankruptcy. To reinforce its point, the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation adopted a designated counsel program under which the attorneys chosen to participate were expected to meet and be graded against these more stringent dates.
LOGS Network is a multi-state network of title companies and law firms and connecting them via a proprietary web-hosted software system. They developed a proprietary statistical program called ASAP (Attorney Scorecard and Performance) to help manage the more than 250 law firms its outsourcing division. By introducing , invented the field counsel industry that serves residential mortgage banking. LOGS Network was co-founded by Gerald M. Shapiro of Shapiro & Fishman PA a law firm who handles foreclosures for the financial industry. His network held a virtual monopoly on all foreclosure and bankruptcy work nationwide until the early 1990s. In addition, he preempted the entire industry by creating the “cradle to grave” concept through business developments in title, closing, document preparation, foreclosures, REO, outsourcing, collection, and debt acquisition businesses.
Fidelity National, a national default outsourcing and information provider, was one of the first in the industry to implement time-frames a high priority instead of a guideline standards. It instituted a policy recognizing and rewarding those attorneys who did work for its clients in a consistently shorter time than their competition. Fidelity mentality was the faster the better and by publicizing and comparing the time to completion of various legal tasks among the hundreds of law firms doing work for its client base. It created a demand for attorneys to keep up with their business practices in the same sequence that other industries have had to in the sense of “recreating the wheel” so to speak to keep up with growing competition.
By having a goal of recovering nonconforming assets for the servicers this put pressure on the time frames they had in order to recover title.
Of course, when the only acceptable
test for quality becomes a simple test
of speed, it is inevitable that some of
the participants will feel compelled
to cut corners to stay in the game.
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