The foreclosure crisis just resulted in a very expensive mix-up for one Mississippi resident.
Terry Jordan was sold the wrong foreclosed home by her realtor and wasn’t informed until after she had spent thousands of dollars on renovations, WREG 3 reports. Her realtor then admitted she had actually been sold the house a few feet away, one half the size and full of mold.
Mississippi is far from one of the more dense foreclosure landscapes in the country. Only one in 4034 properties received a foreclosure filing in March, according to RealtyTrac. Yet the realty company told WREG 3 that they had been given the wrong information by the bank in charge of the foreclosed home anyway. Jordan planned to sell the home at a profit.
This isn’t the first and afraid not going to be the last
HuffPO-
How could a home be repossessed when it’s no longer in the homeowner’s possession? One family in Utah asked itself the same question.
Shantell Curtis and her family were threatened with foreclosure months after they had sold their Vernal, Utah house. What’s more, the problem revolved around a single dollar, Connect2Utah.com reports (h/t The Consumerist). Months after the Curtises sold and moved out of the home in August of last year, their lender, Bank of America, reportedly sent them a foreclosure notice.
Bank of America claimed the family owed months of missed mortgage payments, before realizing a $1 coding error had held up the Curtises’ title transfer. While BofA has taken months to resolving the issue, the Curtises’ credit report has taken a beating since then.
In the wake of the financial crisis, a number of the nation’s largest banks were excused from the government’s rescue program before they had returned to a position of complete financial security — in part because they wanted to avoid restrictions on how much their executives would get paid, according to a new report from the program’s government overseer.
Citigroup, Wells Fargo, PNC and Bank of America successfully lobbied to leave the federal bailout program early in 2009, even though the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation had recommended they take additional steps to shore up their assets, according to a new report from the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Relief Asset Program, a government watchdog office.
Remember Arizona’s Senate Bill 1259 that would have required servicers to produce a declaration that they had the proper chain of title prior to foreclosing on someone’s home? You know… the one that passed the Arizona Senate 28-2 that I wrote about back on February 23rd of this year?
Remember maybe a month ago when I tried to follow up to see how the bill was proceeding in the Arizona House of Representatives… only to find out that on the way to the House… it disappeared… the text replaced by some bill about firefighting with the same number? And no one was saying a word about it? If you missed it, I wrote about it here.
Okay, well… it appears that the story is not over yet.
“I’ve got to ask, did lobbyists have anything to do with your decision?” Erwin asked McLain.
“Well, there were people that came and talked to me about it,” she responded.
“Representative, of course the bankers aren’t going to like this bill, it doesn’t help them. But have you talked to the constituents, the folks in foreclosure who could have been assisted by this?” Erwin questioned.
Were these the people who went to speak with her?
SB 1259 – foreclosures; proof of ownership – DO PASS
Zack Porter, Banking and Insurance Committee Intern, explained the bill and answered questions
posed by the Committee.
Senator Reagan, bill sponsor, further explained the bill and answered questions posed by the
Committee.
Wendy Briggs, Lobbyist, Arizona Bankers Association, testified in opposition to the bill and
answered questions posed by the Committee.
William Hultman, Senior Vice President, MERSCORP, Inc., testified in opposition to the bill and
answered questions posed by the Committee.
Lee Miller, Lobbyist, Arizona Trustee Association, testified in opposition to the bill and answered
questions posed by the Committee.
Darrell Blomberg, representing self, testified in support of the bill and answered questions posed
by the Committee.
Beverly Hall, representing self, testified in opposition to the bill and answered questions posed by
the Committee.
Senator Reagan moved SB 1259 be returned with a DO PASS recommendation.
The motion CARRIED with a roll call vote of 4-0-2 (Attachment 2).
That seems to be the approach that notorious robo-signing firm Nationwide Title Clearing has taken in responding to some of its critics.
If you are unfamiliar with their name, you might recall earlier this Fall when depositions of several Nationwide robo-signers employees went viral on YouTube (We mentioned these here and here).
This, amongst other perceived sleights has upset Nationwide Title, who has sued a St. Petersburg foreclosure defense lawyer, Matthew Weidner, for alleged libel and slander.
This is likely to be a terrible, terrible idea.
For those of you who are not attorneys, I need to point out a few things out about Libel and Slander laws in the United States. These are Constitutional issues, as the First Amendment protects speech, opinion, arguments, viewpoints, etc. In these cases, (capital “T”) Truth is an absolute defense. So if any defendant can demonstrate that the damaging statements were indeed, accurate, they win.
This case turns on the bizarre claim that the term robo-signer so libels the plaintiffs that they are entitled to damages. Given that Truth is a defense, the defendant will prevail if they can demonstrate Nationwide’s approach was robotic. Not literally machines doing the work, but any showing of assembly line manufacturing, for profit, of a streamlined document production that failed to review the documents, evaluate them, analyze the contents should qualify.
Here’s where things get very very interesting: In civil litigation, the discovery process provides lots of opportunities for a defendant to gather information related to the accusations to prove they are true. This is a very broad standard, and it means nearly anything relevant is fair game. Depositions of senior executives, the firm’s accounting and records, balance sheets, low level employees are all legitimate aspects of pre-trial discovery.
Why any private firm would subject themselves to this degree of scrutiny is quite baffling to me.
According to a Certification filed by NTC’s counsel, on November 17, 2010, the trial court contacted via e-mail and requested that a one-hour hearing be set on Friday, November 19th, to hear the pending motions. App. Tab 10. NTC’s counsel learned that Mr. Forrest was traveling outside of the country and would not return until the following Monday, November 22nd. Id. As NTC’s counsel explained: …
Action Date: November 8, 2010
Location: Palm Harbor, FL
The video-taped depositions of employees of Nationwide Title Clearing in Palm Harbor, Florida, were made available on the website Stop Foreclosure Fraud.
The deposition of Bryan Bly is particularly startling and straightforward. Bryan Bly signed documents and witnessed or notarized other documents. Bly testified that he did not witness the signatures he notarized. Bly signed in batches of 200. Bly signed approximately 5,000 mortgage assignments each day. Bly also signed as an officer of many lenders. Bly signed as an officer of over 20 banks and mortgage companies. His supervisors told him there were corporate resolutions authorizing him to sign using these titles. Bly had no knowledge of the information on the documents. Bly did not know what was meant by a mortgage assignment or an attorney-in-fact although he signed mortgage assignments as an officer of Citi Financial as attorney-in-fact for Argent Mortgage. He did not verify any information other than to make sure co-employees had signed their names so there were no blank lines on the documents. He has done this work for approximately 10 years.
One of the titles not discussed in the deposition, but used on tens of thousands of mortgage assignments signed by Bly was Attorney-In-Fact, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, as Receiver for IndyMac Federal Bank FSB, successor to IndyMac Mortgage Holdings, Inc. Bly continued to sign as Attorney-In-Fact for the FDIC as recently as June 25, 2010. A copy of an assignment signed by Bly as Attorney-In-Fact for the FDIC is available in the “Pleadings” section of Fraud Digest.
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