LANSING
Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette announced today that he is working with Oakland County Register of Deeds Bill Bullard, and other local and federal authorities, to look into questionable mortgage documentation filed with Michigan’s Register of Deeds offices during the current foreclosure crisis.
Bullard and other county officials have uncovered Assignment of Mortgage documents filed in their offices with signatures of some mortgage executives that appear to have been forged by many different people, raising questions about the authenticity of the documents. For example, a recent “60 Minutes” news broadcast showed that the name “Linda Green” was signed to thousands of documents nationwide but with many different variations in handwriting. Bullard, in a letter to Schuette today, said that his office has found many examples of these documents in its files, as have other county Register of Deeds offices, and plans to forward the questionable documents to the Attorney General’s office for review.
Schuette’s office is beginning the process of working with local, state and federal authorities to look into the problem. Since late last year, the Michigan Attorney General’s office has also been a part of a 50-state Attorneys General workgroup addressing the robo-signing issue and other consumer protection issues.
“The idea that anyone would forge documents during a process in which a family is losing their home is absolutely unconscionable,” said Schuette. “We are working closely with federal and local authorities to get to the bottom of this.”
“I want Oakland County residents going through the foreclosure process to be aware of this potential problem with their mortgage documentation and strongly encourage them to review their files,” said Bullard. “My office will continue its investigation and work with Attorney General Schuette’s office as we find more questionable documents.”
Curtis Hertel Jr., Register of Deeds for Ingham County, says that a discovery he made involving alleged fraudulent mortgage documents is now being investigated by both the Ingham County Sheriff’s Department and the FBI.
“Yes, this is, in my opinion, fraud,” Hertel said. “This is a situation where people were forging someone else’s name to a legal document to take another person’s property. That is fraud.”
West Palm Beach resident Liz Mills learned she was a robo-signer when a friend suggested she search her own name online.
On foreclosure blogs and in at least one newspaper article, the 51-year-old process server was singled out for the numerous and varying styles of her signatures on summons paperwork used to prove her efforts in locating homeowners in foreclosure.
LPS entered into a consent order (the “Order”) with the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Office of Thrift Supervision (collectively, the “banking agencies”) in connection with their review of matters relating to the mortgage servicing industry, including the services provided to mortgage servicers by their DocX and Default Solutions operations.
LPS will engage an independent third party to conduct a risk assessment and review of our default management businesses and the document execution services we provided to Servicers from January 1, 2008 through December 31, 2010.
LOL– These are not the ORIGINAL Assignments, They’re locked up in a vault … (sure they are)
From the Letter:
“In addition to transferring the mortgage through an unrecorded assignment at the time the assignee securitization trust obtains the loan, it has been industry practice for the loan servicer to have an assignment of mortgage executed and recorded in the name of the trustee for the securitization trust typically shortly before a foreclosure action is commenced. This latter assignment would be recorded to put record title into the name of the owner or holder of the loan, to eliminate any confusion about the assignee being the appropriate plaintiff to commence the foreclosure action. However, this assignment would not act to transfer ownership or holder status to that assignee, which occurred earlier, as explained above.
Although there exists a signed and notarized unrecorded assignment of mortgage in favor of the securitization trustee in a loan file maintained under contract by a custodian retained by the trust, in most cases it is very burdensome and costly to obtain that old, original assignment and more troublesome to record it, which is a document in favor of blank (that is, the name of the assignee is not filled in) and is dated, signed, and notarized years ago; it is generally less burdensome, more efficient, and less expensive to have foreclosure counsel review the current state of title and counsel or a document preparer prepare, sign, notarize, and record a currently prepared assignment, pursuant to appropriate corporate authority.”
I ask the following very simple question. Did this activity violate the RICO Act? In what manner might the the RICO Act have been violated? Try the following on for size:
1. Mail and wire fraud.
2. Extortionate credit transactions.
3. Obstruction of justice.
4. Interference of commerce.
5. Laundering of monetary instruments.
6. Monetary transactions in property derived from specified unlawful activities.
7. Relating to trafficking in goods and services bearing counterfeit marks.
8. Fraud in the sale of securities.
As it turns out, Wall Street cut corners when it bundled homeowners’ mortgages into securities that were traded from investor to investor. Now that banks are foreclosing on people, they’re finding that the legal documents behind many mortgages are missing. So, what do the banks do? As Pelley explains in this video, some companies appear to be resorting to forgery and phony paperwork in what looks like a nationwide epidemic.
Even if you’re not at risk of foreclosure, there could be legal ramifications for a homeowner if the chain of title has been lost. Watch the “60 Minutes” report and listen to Pelley’s discussion with “60 Minutes Overtime” editor Ann Silvio about the findings of his reporting team.
If there was a question about whether we’re headed for a second housing shock, that was settled last week with news that home prices have fallen a sixth consecutive month. Values are nearly back to levels of the Great Recession. One thing weighing on the economy is the huge number of foreclosed houses.
Many are stuck on the market for a reason you wouldn’t expect: banks can’t find the ownership documents.
“[A] forged deed is a nullity and vests no title in a grantee. [Cit.] As such, even a bona fide purchaser for value without notice of a forgery cannot acquire good title from a grantee in a forged deed, or those holding under such a grantee, because the grantee has no title to convey.”Brock v. Yale Mortgage Co
AURORA LOAN SERVICES, LLC
v.
JOHN MACELRAY VEATCH, ADMR., et al.
S10A1725.
Supreme Court of Georgia.
Decided: March 18, 2011.
HINES, Justice.
In this quiet title action, the trial court entered a final order ruling that fee simple title to the subject property was vested in John Macrelay Veatch (“Veatch”), as personal representative of the estate of Raymond Wesley Veatch, Jr., unencumbered by the security deed held by Aurora Loan Services, LLC (“Aurora”), and striking various deeds from the deed records of Fulton County. Aurora appeals, and for the reasons that follow, we affirm.
Elsie Veatch owned the subject property until her death in 1974; her sole heir was Raymond Wesley Veatch, Jr., Veatch’s father, who died on March 20, 2006. After his death, two forged deeds were recorded in the Fulton County deed records, purporting to convey title to the property to Antonio Simpson. One forged deed was styled “Quitclaim Deed,” purportedly executed on May 19, 2006 by Elsie Veatch, who had then been dead for 32 years; this purported deed was recorded on October 17, 2006. The other purported deed was styled “Executors Deed,” and was purportedly executed by Raymond Wesley Veatch, Jr., on March 15, 2006, a date on which he lay in a coma; it was recorded on November 6, 2006. After these forged deeds were executed and recorded, a warranty deed purportedly from Antonio Simpson to Darryl Matthews was recorded on November 8, 2006. Matthews then executed a security deed in favor of First Magnus Financial Corporation in connection with a loan for $187,500. The security deed was eventually assigned to Aurora.
On September 5, 2007, after Veatch discovered activity on the property and applied for, and was granted, letters of administration of the estate of Raymond Wesley Veatch, Jr., he filed in the Fulton County land records an affidavit stating that the Executor’s and Quitclaim deeds were false. He then filed in the superior court the present petition to quiet title. OCGA § 23-3-40 et seq. The trial court appointed a Special Master who concluded that Aurora was a bona fide purchaser for value. See Roop Grocery Co. v. Gentry, 195 Ga. 736, 745 (1) (25 SE2d 705) (1943). However, the trial court disagreed, finding that there was record notice that the forged deeds were fraudulent, and that in any event, a forged deed is a nullity and cannot convey title.
The trial court is correct. Aurora’s interest in the property is dependent upon the forged deeds made to Antonio Simpson. As the trial court noted, such a deed cannot convey title. “[A] forged deed is a nullity and vests no title in a grantee. [Cit.] As such, even a bona fide purchaser for value without notice of a forgery cannot acquire good title from a grantee in a forged deed, or those holding under such a grantee, because the grantee has no title to convey.” Brock v. Yale Mortgage Co., 287 Ga. 849, 852 (2) (700 SE2d 583) (2010). In that opinion, this Court specifically overruled prior precedent of this Court that extended “the bona fide purchaser for value doctrine to those acquiring title under a grantee in a forged deed.” Id. at 853 (2). Accordingly, it is of no moment whether the deed records provided notice of the forgeries at the time Matthews executed the security deed on which Aurora bases its claim; there was simply no title held by Simpson, Matthews, First Magnus Financial Corporation, or any subsequent assignee. Id. Accord, Second Refuge Church &c. v. Lollar, 282 Ga. 721, 726-727 (3) (550 SE2d 128) (2007). The trial court did not err in declaring title to be vested in Veatch, as personal representative of the estate of Raymond Wesley Veatch, Jr., unencumbered by the security deed held by Aurora.
As if the country needed more proof of the outlaw behaviors of banks and their agents, The Baltimore Sun‘s Jamie Smith Hopkins reports that 1,000 or more Maryland deeds are likely forgeries, created by a foreclosure mill. A former notary from law firm Shapiro & Burson filed an affidavit with law enforcement and regulators charging that the attorneys’ signatures on the deeds and other important documents were forgeries signed at the express direction of management. The affidavit attached sample signatures.
If the forgery claims are true — and that’s not much of an “if” — the false deeds cloud the properties’ titles, creating a nightmare for the innocent people who bought the homes after they were foreclosed upon.
By MICHELLE CONLIN – Feb 6, 2011 7:29 PM ET
By The Associated Press
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — During the housing crash, it was good to be a foreclosure king. David Stern was Florida’s top foreclosure lawyer, and he lived like an oil sheik. He piled up a collection of trophy properties, glided through town in a fleet of six-figure sports cars and, with his bombshell wife, partied on an ocean cruiser the size of a small hotel.
When homeowners fell behind on their mortgages, the banks flocked to “foreclosure mills” like Stern’s to push foreclosures through the courts on their behalf. To his megabank clients — Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, GMAC, Citibank and Wells Fargo — Stern was the ultimate Repo Man.
At industry gatherings, Stern bragged in his boyish voice of taking mortgages from the “cradle to the grave.” Of the federal government’s disastrous homeowner relief plan, which was supposed to keep people from getting evicted, he quipped: “Fortunately, it’s failing.”
The worse things got for homeowners, the better they got for Stern.
That is, until last fall, when the nation’s foreclosure machine blew apart and Stern’s gilded world came undone. Within a few months, Stern went from being the subject of a gushing magazine profile to being the subject of a Florida investigation, class-action lawsuits and blogger Schadenfreude that, at last long, the “foreclosure king” was dead.
“What Stern represents is an industry that was completely unrestrained, unchecked, unpunished and unsupervised,” says Florida defense attorney Matt Weidner. “This was business gone wild.”
The rise and fall of Stern, now 50, provides an inside look at how the foreclosure industry worked in the last decade — and how it fell apart. It also shows how banks, together with their law firms, built a quick-and-dirty foreclosure machine that was designed to take as many houses as fast as possible.
ByChristine Stapleton and Kimberly Miller Palm Beach Post Staff Writer Updated: 7:22 p.m. Monday, Jan. 31, 2011
Posted: 11:51 a.m. Monday, Jan. 31, 2011
In an opinion that could have unfathomable consequences in countless foreclosure cases, The Florida Bar says attorneys must notify a judge about potential fraud — including robo-signed affidavits and forged notary stamps — even if a foreclosure case is closed and the home has been sold at auction.
The direction was published in an article in today’s issue of The Florida Bar Journal as part of an outline in a new free online foreclosure class offered by The Bar. The class is in response to problems that led several major lenders to temporarily freeze foreclosures last fall.
No one knows how many cases could be affected or what judges will do when they are notified. About 1.2 million foreclosures have been filed in Florida since January 2007, according to RealtyTrac. Investigators for the Florida Attorney General’s Office have found tens of thousands of forged signatures, backdated documents and other problem paperwork at four law firms, so-called “foreclosure mills” currently under investigation.
“There has never been a problem like this before or this kind of wholesale misrepresentation,” said Margery Golant, a Boca Raton-based attorney who teaches a portion of the Bar’s four-hour online course, which instructs lawyers to report fraud. “No one knows how this is going to turn out or what the right things to do are.”
Published: Tuesday, January 18, 2011 at 1:00 a.m.
Last Modified: Monday, January 17, 2011 at 10:52 p.m.
.
( page all of 5 )
Florida courthouses are rife with evidence of errors and fabrications made by attorneys handling foreclosure cases, and yet so far no lawyers have been disciplined.
With pressure mounting to police its own members, the Florida Bar established a special category of complaints listed as “foreclosure fraud.”
But in 20 complaints investigated in that category, the Bar has not found cause to discipline anyone — even lawyers who admitted to breaking ethical rules.
Some observers say that early track record of ignoring misdeeds by its members raises questions about whether the system of self-policing for lawyers can handle the depth of wrongdoing in the foreclosure crisis.
The complaints have been filed by judges, lawyers, homeowners and the Florida Bar itself, and reflect the issues seen in courtrooms almost daily for the past two years, including forged signatures and backdated documents used to improperly seize homes in foreclosures.
Franklin and Toni Ly (Appellants) initiated foreclosure proceedings against a shopping center owned by Jimmy Carter Commons, LLC. Jimmy Carter Commons filed an action to enjoin foreclosure and cancel the security deed and various loan documents upon which the foreclosure proceedings were based. The trial court entered a temporary injunction, and subsequently granted summary judgment to Jimmy Carter Commons. This appeal followed.
1. On appeal from the grant of summary judgment, this Court conducts a de novo review of the evidence to determine whether there is “a genuine issue of material fact, and whether the undisputed facts, viewed in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party, warrant judgment as a matter of law. [Cit]” Northwest Carpets v. First Nat. Bank of Chatsworth, 280 Ga. 535, 538 (1) (630 SE2d 407) (2006). Viewed in favor of Appellants, the evidence shows that James Byun and Jin Choi were the managers of Jimmy Carter Commons, a limited liability company. Byun, purportedly acting on behalf of Jimmy Carter Commons, obtained a $1 million loan from Appellants for a real estate development project. Before executing the loan documents, Appellants learned that the operating agreement for Jimmy Carter Commons requires the approval of both Byun and Choi for such a transaction. Appellants then prepared a document entitled “Jimmy Carter Commons, LLC Unanimous Written Consent of the Manager and Members,” which authorized Byun alone “to execute the Promissory Note and Deed to Secure Debt” in question. That document was signed by Byun and ostensibly signed by Choi. Appellants and Byun then executed the loan documents, showing that the loan was made to Jimmy Carter Commons, and the loan deed conveying to Appellants the shopping center to secure the debt. Over a year later, Byun and Appellants executed loan modification documents increasing the principal amount of the loan to $1.5 million. Those documents included a “Unanimous Consent of Members of Jimmy Carter Commons, LLC,” which states that the members of the company authorize and approve the guaranty of the loan, including execution of the deed to secure debt. That document also bears the signature of Byun and the purported signature of Choi.
In granting summary judgment, the trial court found that it is undisputed that Byun did not have authority to act alone on behalf of Jimmy Carter Commons because its operating agreement required the approval of Choi, that Choi had no dealings with Appellants and did not authorize the transaction in question, that Choi’s signatures on the unanimous consent documents were forged, and that those documents were ineffective to authorize Byun alone to bind the company. However, even if all of that is true, there is still a genuine issue of material fact as to whether Appellants had knowledge that the unanimous consent documents were ineffective and did not give Byun the authority to act alone on behalf of Jimmy Carter Commons.
[T]he act of any manager [of a limited liability company] . . . binds the limited liability company, unless the manager so acting has, in fact, no authority to act for the limited liability company in the particular matter, and the person with whom he or she is dealing has knowledge of the fact that the manager has no such authority. (Emphasis supplied.)
OCGA § 14-11-301 (b) (2). Thus, “[n]o act of a manager . . . in contravention of a restriction on authority shall bind the limited liability company to persons having knowledge of the restriction.” OCGA § 14-11-301 (d).
Consequently, even if Byun acted beyond his authority as a manager of Jimmy Carter Commons, the limited liability company may still be bound by his actions if Appellants did not know that he lacked such authority. In its summary judgment order, the trial court did not cite, and Jimmy Carter Commons has not identified, undisputed evidence showing that Appellants knew that Choi’s signatures on the consent documents were forged. On the contrary, Franklin Ly testified that he had attorneys prepare the consent documents specifically to confirm Byun’s claim that he had authority to act alone on behalf of Jimmy Carter Commons, that the documents were sent to Jimmy Carter Commons in order for Byun and Choi to sign them, that the consent documents were then brought to the closing of the transactions with both Byun’s signature and Choi’s apparent signature, that it was represented to Ly that Choi had signed the documents, and that he believed that Choi had in fact signed them. This testimony creates genuine issues of material fact as to whether Appellants knew that Choi’s signatures were forged, and whether they were justified in assuming that the consent documents authorized Byun’s unilateral action on behalf of Jimmy Carter Commons. See Turnipseed v. Jaje, 267 Ga. 320, 323 (2) (a) (477 SE2d 101) (1996) (must appear that person of ordinary prudence was justified in assuming that agent had authority to perform a particular act); Capital Color Printing v. Ahern, 291 Ga. App. 101, 112 (2) (661 SE2d 578) (2008) (where agent with apparent authority commits fraud against a third party who reasonably believed that he was entering into a bona fide transaction, principal may be charged with the fraud).
On summary judgment, a trial court is not authorized to resolve disputed issues of material fact. A trial court is authorized only to determine whether disputed issues of material fact remain. If, and only if, no disputed issue of material fact remains is the trial court authorized to grant summary judgment.
The county’s Office of the Inspector General said Kenneth Arthur Ferguson, a former employee of the Miami-Dade County Finance Department, Tax Collector’s Office was arrested July 13. He was charged with one count of organized scheme to defraud, a second-degree felony; 11 counts of forgery; and 11 counts of uttering a forged instrument, third-degree felony charges.
The OIG investigation found that Ferguson, a tax records specialist II whose duties included collecting and processing tax payments from the public, forged his supervisor’s signature on employment verification forms and altered payroll statements in order to qualify for low-income housing.
Ferguson’s scheme was first discovered when an income verification form with the forged supervisor’s signature was inadvertently intercepted by an employee at the fax machine and placed on the supervisor’s desk. Upon seeing the document, Ferguson’s supervisor immediately realized her signature had been forged. The OIG was called to investigate the alleged misconduct.
The OIG found that Ferguson not only forged his supervisor’s signature on verification of employment forms, but also fraudulently altered payroll statements, which are official public records, to demonstrate a lower income. Ferguson’s actual income was higher than the qualifying limit for the reduced rent. From 2005 through 2009, the fraud garnered Ferguson $37,944 in rental housing benefits he was not qualified to receive.
“Forging documents to qualify for special poverty programs feels much like a crime against the poor,” Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle said. ” In reality, it is a sad crime against every person living in Miami-Dade County.”
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