AMERICA’S SERVICING COMPANY
LENDER PROCESSING SERVICES
WELLS FARGO BANK, N.A.
Action Date: October 7, 2010
Location: Palm Beach County, FL
WHY WELLS FARGO MUST BE ORDERED TO STOP ITS FORECLOSURES. While other banks have acknowledged some problems and halted some foreclosures, Wells Fargo has issued self-serving statements and forged ahead.
Why should Wells Fargo be ordered to stop its foreclosures? First, Wells Fargo’s foreclosure mill, America’s Servicing Company, and its robo-signers John Herman Kennerty, China Brown, Heather Carrico, Natasha Clark and others signed thousands of documents each month with no knowledge of the truth of the matters set forth for the courts in those documents. The sheer volume of the documents signed by Kennerty should be enough to convince any court that Kennerty had no knowledge of the facts.
A court in Brooklyn found a case where Kennerty’s signature was notarized, but actually did not appear on the document. The notary was mindlessly signing a stack of documents.
Which law firms are submitting the Affidavits in Florida for Wells Fargo? Florida Default Law Group and the Law Offices of David Stern, two of the law firms under investigation by the Florida Attorney General. Second, Wells Fargo used Docx in Alpharetta, Georgia to produce mortgage assignments used in thousands of Wells Fargo foreclosures. Many different employees signed the name “Linda Green” on these documents. (For three examples of mortgage assignments used by Wells Fargo, click on the “Pleadings” section of this website – no sign-on is necessary.)
Despite the statements of Lender Processing Services to the contrary, Docx “Linda Green” Affidavits – with many versions of the Linda Green signature – continued to appear in Wells Fargo cases well into 2009. Examples are also in the Pleadings Section. The Perry Affidavit was signed July 10, 2008, but notarized January 15, 2009. The Carrerra Affidavit was signed in January 2008, but notarized in January, 2009. On these few examples, Linda Green is identified as the Vice President of Wells Fargo bank, the Vice President of Sand Canyon Mortgage and the Vice President of American Home Mortgage Servicing. Most are notarized by the same notary, Brittany Snow, who says she has personal knowledge that Linda Green is Vice President of these many entities.
In the first quarter of 2010, Wells Fargo filed 1,117 foreclosure actions in Palm Beach County. In the second quarter, Wells Fargo filed 920 foreclosures in Palm Beach County. In the third quarter, Wells Fargo filed 847 foreclosures. In the vast majority of these foreclosures, Wells Fargo is acting as a trustee for a mortgage-backed securitized trust that cannot even prove that it acquired the mortgages without relying on the Linda Green and John Kennerty documents.
This is not the time to stonewall. THE FDIC AND OCC, THE SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY AND THE SECRETARY OF HOUSING NEED TO STOP THE WELLS FARGO FORECLOSURES.
UNITED STATES BANKRUPTCY COURT
Minute Entry
FOR THE DISTRICT OF ARIZONA
Hearing Information:
Date / Time / Room:
Case Number: 4:08-BK-15510-EWH Chapter: 13
Debtor: JULIA V. VASQUEZ
Hearing Information:
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 07, 2010 11:30 AM COURTROOM 430
ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE WHY SANCTIONS SHOULD NOT BE IMPOSED PURSUANT TO FED. R. BANKR. P. 9011, 3001, LOCAL BANKRUPTCY RULES 4001 (e) AND 9011-1 AND 11 U.S.C. SEC. 105 FOR CONDUCT RELATED TO A PROOF OF CLAIM FILED 11/28/08 AND MOTION FOR RELIEF FROM STAY FILED ON 1/6/09. (reset from 9/2/10) R / M #: 90 / 0
Appearances:
BEVERLY B. PARKER, ATTORNEY FOR JULIA V. VASQUEZ, Appearing in Phoenix
ERIC J MCNEILUS, ATTORNEY FOR JULIA V. VASQUEZ
LEONARD MCDONALD, ATTORNEY FOR TIFFANY & BOSCO, Appearing in Phoenix
DAVID GOSS FROM SAXON MORTGAGE, ASSISTANT VICE-PRESIDENT OF BANKRUPTCY DEPARTMENT, Present in courtroom in Phoenix
Proceedings:
Mr. McDonald filed a pre-hearing statement yesterday and provides a copy to Ms. Parker.
The court expresses its concerns and explains why the order was issued.
Mr. McDonald walks the court through what he has learned about the matter. Admittedly the proof of claim nor stay relief motion were plead to say that they were done in the name of Saxon Mortgage Servicer as servicer for the beneficial interest of Deutsche.
Court asks Mr. McDonald if his office knew who held the deed of trust.
Mr. McDonald responds that the electronic referral was asked to be done in the name of Saxon. They were not prosecuting a non-judicial trustee sale. They noticed up the trustee sale in the name of Deutsche. If you look at the note and deed of trust they are in the name of Saxon Mortgage.
Court points out that the proof of claim was never withdrawn. No one had the courtesy to inform the debtor that Deutsche Bank should have been served.
Mr. McDonald responds that he did not represent Saxon in the adversary. When they received push back they did not go forward with a trustee sale or prosecute the motion for relief from stay.
Mr. David Goss is sworn and examined by the court. Ms. Parker cross-examines the witness and Mr. McDonald objects.
The witness is excused.
COURT PLACES ITS FINDINGS ON THE RECORD. SAXON TO PAY MS. VASQUEZ’S LAWYERS $5000.00 WITHIN TEN DAYS FROM TODAY OR A NOTICE OF APPEAL IS FILED.
Be sure to catch the Full Depo of Renee Hertzler below after AP Alan Zibel’s article
Bank of America delays foreclosures in 23 states
By ALAN ZIBEL, AP Real Estate Writer Alan Zibel, – Fri Oct 1, 7:46 pm ET
WASHINGTON – Bank of America is delaying foreclosures in 23 states as it examines whether it rushed the foreclosure process for thousands of homeowners without reading the documents.
The move adds the nation’s largest bank to a growing list of mortgage companies whose employees signed documents in foreclosure cases without verifying the information in them.
Bank of America isn’t able to estimate how many homeowners’ cases will be affected, Dan Frahm, a spokesman for the Charlotte, N.C.-based bank, said Friday. He said the bank plans to resubmit corrected documents within several weeks.
Two other companies, Ally Financial Inc.’s GMAC Mortgage unit and JPMorgan Chase, have halted tens of thousands of foreclosure cases after similar problems became public.
The document problems could cause thousands of homeowners to contest foreclosures that are in the works or have been completed. If the problems turn up at other lenders, a foreclosure crisis that’s already likely to drag on for several more years could persist even longer. Analysts caution that most homeowners facing foreclosure are still likely to lose their homes.
State attorneys general, who enforce foreclosure laws, are stepping up pressure on the industry.
On Friday, Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal asked a state court to freeze all home foreclosures for 60 days. Doing so “should stop a foreclosure steamroller based on defective documents,” he said.
And California Attorney General Jerry Brown called on JPMorgan to suspend foreclosures unless it could show it complied with a state consumer protection law. The law requires lenders to contact borrowers at risk of foreclosure to determine whether they qualify for mortgage assistance.
In Florida, the state attorney general is investigating four law firms, two with ties to GMAC, for allegedly providing fraudulent documents in foreclosure cases .The Ohio attorney general this week asked judges to review GMAC foreclosure cases.
Mark Paustenbach, a Treasury Department spokesman, said the Treasury has asked federal regulators “to look into these troubling developments.”
A document obtained Friday by the Associated Press showed a Bank of America official acknowledging in a legal proceeding that she signed up to 8,000 foreclosure documents a month and typically didn’t read them.
The official, Renee Hertzler, said in a February deposition that she signed 7,000 to 8,000 foreclosure documents a month.
“I typically don’t read them because of the volume that we sign,” Hertzler said.
She also acknowledged identifying herself as a representative of a different bank, Bank of New York Mellon, that she didn’t work for. Bank of New York Mellon served as a trustee for the investors holding the homeowner’s loan.
HEY JUDGE COX, THIS IS WHAT YOUR MOTION TO QUASH IS PROTECTING!
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MY GOD!
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WHERE ARE THE F***ING FEDERAL AGENTS!!!
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“I personally did not do it because I refused to do it.”
“I wasn’t going to falsify a military document.”
“I was told that that’s fine, somebody else on your team will do it.”
~
This just in and it is unbelievable!
We are neck deep in issues today so I do not have time to go through and highlight everything, and there is a lot, but here are some snips…
TAKE THE TIME TO READ THIS IN ITS ENTIRETY
THIS SHOULD BE THE BOMBSHELL THAT STOPS IT ALL IN FLORIDA
MORE TO FOLLOW ON THIS
1 STATE OF FLORIDA OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL
2 DEPARTMENT OF LEGAL AFFAIRS
3 AG # L10-3-1145
4
5 IN RE:
6 INVESTIGATION OF LAW OFFICES
OF DAVID J. STERN, P.A.
7
8 ____________________________/
9
10
11
12 DEPOSITION OF TAMMIE LOU KAPUSTA
13
14
15
16 12:11 p.m. – 1:58 p.m.
September 22, 2010
17 Office of the Attorney General
110 Southeast 6th Street, 10th Floor
18 Fort Lauderdale, Florida 33301
1 P R O C E E D I N G S
2 – – –
3 Deposition taken before Kalandra Smith, Court
4 Reporter and Notary Public in and for the State of
5 Florida at Large, in the above cause.
6 – – –
7 THERE UPON:
8 TAMMIE LOU KAPUSTA
9 having been first duly sworn or affirmed, was examined
10 and testified as follows:
1 Q Let’s go to the assignments of mortgage. They
2 were prepared in-house?
3 A Yeah.
4 Q You’re smiling. You want to tell me about
5 them?
6 A Assignments were done sometimes after the
7 final judgement was entered.
8 Q Do you know why that is?
9 A Because that’s what we were directed to do
19 Q Can you tell me the execution of the
20 assignments, how it worked?
21 A Assignments were prepared again from the
22 casesum. All of our stuff comes from the casesum. They
23 would be stamped and signed by a notary or not. Per
24 floor we had a designated spot to place them and Cheryl
25 would come once a day and sign them.
22
1 Q Sign them as what?
2 A As –
3 Q For the bank?
4 A Correct.
5 Q Or for MERS or whoever it was for?
6 A Correct.
7 Q Would these notaries be there watching her as
8 she signed?
9 A No.
10 Q She would just sit there and sign stacks of
11 them?
12 A Correct. As far as notaries go in the firm I
13 don’t think any notary actually used their own notary
14 stamp. The team used them.
15 Q There were just stamps around?
16 A Yes.
17 Q And you actually saw that?
18 A I was part of that.
19 Q You did it? Are you a notary?
20 A No, I’m not.
21 Q Did you sign as a witness?
22 A I did not. I signed as a witness on one
23 document and after that I decided that I didn’t want to
24 put my name as a witness anymore.
25 Q Tell me about the stamps. You stamped them?
23
1 A Yeah, I had stamps. Each team had a notary on
2 them or notaries that I was aware of. Whether they were
3 or weren’t wasn’t –
4 Q You had stamps?
5 A Correct. We would stamp them and they would
6 get signed.
7 Q Stamp them in blanks?
8 A Yes.
9 Q Who would sign them?
10 A Other people on the team that could sign the
11 signature of the person or just a check on there or
12 whatever.
13 Q Was that common practice?
14 A Yes.
15 Q Was that standard practice?
16 A Pretty much.
17 Q What about the witnesses?
18 A Those would be signed by juniors who were –
19 Q Standing there?
20 A Here, sign this. It has to go to Cheryl, sign
21 it. Then it would go and sit at the desk where Cheryl
22 would sign everything.
23 Q Out of view of the notary and out of view of
24 the witnesses?
25 A Correct.
24
1 Q Do you know who implemented this procedure?
2 A Cheryl.
3 Q Cheryl did?
4 A Um-hum.
5 Q Did anybody else sign with the firm for the
6 banks?
7 A Yes.
8 Q Who was that?
9 A There were people that were responsible for
10 signing Cheryl’s name. Cheryl, Tammie Sweat, and Beth
11 Cerni. Those were the only three people that could sign
12 Cheryl’s name. If you ever look at assignments you’ll
13 see that they are not all the same.
14 MS. EDWARDS: What are the names again?
15 Cheryl, Tammie?
16 THE WITNESS: Tammie Sweat and Beth Cerni.
17 MS. EDWARDS: Could you spell that.
18 MS. CLARKSON: C-E-R-N-I.
19 BY MS. CLARKSON:
20 Q Did they practice Cheryl’s signature?
21 A I would assume so.
22 Q Did you ever see them?
23 A Not practicing but I’ve seen them sign it.
24 Q Did you see somebody sign Cheryl’s name?
25 A Yes.
25
1 Q That wasn’t Cheryl?
2 A Yes. All the time.
3 Q Did Cheryl know about this?
4 A Yes.
5 Q Was it at her direction?
6 A Yes.
16 Q Did anyone quit as far as you know due to the
17 practices?
18 A I’m sure but they wouldn’t come right out and
19 say I quit because of the practices. I know that people
20 had left because they were uncomfortable with the things
21 that they were being asked to do, as most of us were.
22 When it got really sticky there were a lot of us that
23 weren’t here.
24 Q What does really sticky mean?
25 A They wanted us to start changing the documents
33
1 and stuff and doing stuff that we weren’t supposed to be
2 doing as far as service.
3 Q What documents did they want you to change?
4 A Manpower documents. A lot of judges started
5 requiring, because of the Jane and John Doe issues,
6 required that you have a military search for all the
7 defendants. If you named a Jane and John Doe as an NKA
8 you had to pull a military search on them. Unless you
9 have somebody’s social security number technically you
10 can’t pull a military search supposedly.
11 The program that we used for the program that
12 we used, you could put in the main defendant’s social
13 security and John or Jane Doe’s name and it would give
14 us a military search saying that they were in the
15 military.
16 Q You would get their social security number
17 because the bank documents contained it?
18 A Correct. The lenders, the referrals had the
19 socials.
20 Q Did you put the social in on everybody to find
21 out their address for service?
22 A Not everybody. I personally did not do it
23 because I refused to do it. I wasn’t going to falsify a
24 military document. I was told that that’s fine,
25 somebody else on your team will do it.
1 Q What do you mean falsify a military document?
2 A Well, I’m using the main defendant’s social
3 security number on somebody else’s name, not his name.
4 John Doe and the main defendant was James, I was taking
5 James’ social security number and putting John Doe’s
6 name in there. I wasn’t but that’s what the practice
7 was. The judges started saying we’re not going to
8 consider service completed until –
9 Q There’s a miliary search?
10 A Correct.
11 Q So why wouldn’t they use the right social
12 security number for the right person?
13 A Because you don’t have a social for an NKA or
14 unknown tenant. They wouldn’t enter a final judgement
15 unless the military doc was there.
16 Q So you just used anybody’s?
17 A Correct.
9 A So what we had to do from that point, again
10 the affidavits were still split in two pages, at that
11 point we were supposed to be sending them back to the
12 banks to be signed now. The problem being that a lot of
13 times we wouldn’t get them back or executed in time for
14 the hearings. So we had what they called signature
15 pages that Tammie Sweat or someone else would have in
16 their possession. If we couldn’t get it back from the
17 bank executed in time we would just take a signature
18 page and put it on the affidavit.
19 Q What was on the signature page?
20 A The signature and notary from the bank.
21 Q Were these documents photocopied or were they
22 original documents?
23 A Some were photocopied.
24 Q How would you get that many from a bank
25 original? The bank supplied them to you.
42
1 A Well, what would happen would be like if I had
2 file A and that one didn’t go to hearing because there
3 was something wrong with it and file B was going to
4 hearing but it was the same bank, I would take the
5 signature page from A and give it to B.
6 Q Oh give it to another file?
7 A And just re-execute this file.
8 Q Okay. That was common practice?
9 A Yes, after Cheryl couldn’t sign.
10 Q Did Cheryl know?
11 A Yes.
12 Q Cheryl knew about all the practices because
13 she is the one who ran the office?
14 A She was the one who implemented them.
15 Q Were there any other activities or practices
16 over at David Stern’s firm that made you feel
17 uncomfortable or that you were unwilling to do?
18 A I don’t know how to answer that question.
19 It’s a loaded one.
20 Q Take your time.
21 A Yeah. Some of the things that were done there
22 just were not on the up and up.
23 Q Explain to me in as much detail as you can
24 what those things were.
25 A I don’t even know where to start with it.
Begun and held at the City of Washington on Tuesday,
the fifth day of January, two thousand and ten
An Act
To require any Federal or State court to recognize any notarization made by a notary public licensed by a State other than the State where the court is located when such notarization occurs in or affects interstate commerce.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ‘Interstate Recognition of Notarizations Act of 2010’.
SEC. 2. RECOGNITION OF NOTARIZATIONS IN FEDERAL COURTS.
Each Federal court shall recognize any lawful notarization made by a notary public licensed or commissioned under the laws of a State other than the State where the Federal court is located if–
(1) such notarization occurs in or affects interstate commerce; and
(2)(A) a seal of office, as symbol of the notary public’s authority, is used in the notarization; or
(B) in the case of an electronic record, the seal information is securely attached to, or logically associated with, the electronic record so as to render the record tamper-resistant.
SEC. 3. RECOGNITION OF NOTARIZATIONS IN STATE COURTS.
Each court that operates under the jurisdiction of a State shall recognize any lawful notarization made by a notary public licensed or commissioned under the laws of a State other than the State where the court is located if–
(1) such notarization occurs in or affects interstate commerce; and
(2)(A) a seal of office, as symbol of the notary public’s authority, is used in the notarization; or
(B) in the case of an electronic record, the seal information is securely attached to, or logically associated with, the electronic record so as to render the record tamper-resistant.
SEC. 4. DEFINITIONS.
In this Act:
(1) ELECTRONIC RECORD- The term ‘electronic record’ has the meaning given that term in section 106 of the Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act (15 U.S.C. 7006).
(2) LOGICALLY ASSOCIATED WITH- Seal information is ‘logically associated with’ an electronic record if the seal information is securely bound to the electronic record in such a manner as to make it impracticable to falsify or alter, without detection, either the record or the seal information.
Speaker of the House of Representatives.
Vice President of the United States and President of the Senate.
Oct. 6 (Bloomberg) — Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray talks about the state’s lawsuit against Ally Financial Inc. Ohio’s suit alleges that Ally’s GMAC mortgage unit violated state consumer law and committed fraud by filing false affidavits in foreclosure proceedings. He talks with Carol Massar and Matt Miller on Bloomberg Television’s “Street Smart.” (Source: Bloomberg) LINK:BLOOMBERG
Florida lawyer warns of deepening foreclosure mess
By Kevin Gray
ROYAL PALM BEACH, Florida | Wed Oct 6, 2010 2:58pm EDT
ROYAL PALM BEACH, Florida (Reuters) – A Florida lawyer at the forefront of legal challenges against foreclosure practices by mortgage lenders says the U.S. housing morass will drag on due to difficulty in determining who owns home loans.
Questions over practices in foreclosure procedures across the United States have forced at least three banks to temporarily halt their proceedings and prompted a growing chorus of calls by lawmakers and regulators for an industry-wide moratorium until problems are resolved.
However, Tom Ice, whose law firm Ice Legal P.A. was among the first to get banking executives to acknowledge shoddy foreclosure practices, said it will be difficult for banks to fix all of the paperwork errors.
“This isn’t just a procedural technicality, it’s exposed the very problem at the heart of the securitization fiasco, which is no one knows who owns what,” he said in an interview on Tuesday.
A record 1.2 million U.S. homes are expected to be taken over by banks this year, up from 1 million last year and 100,000 in 2005, real estate data company RealtyTrac Inc. says.
Faced with a rising tide of foreclosures, lenders employed so-called “robo-signers” — middle-ranking banking executives who signed thousands of affidavits a month claiming they were knowledgeable of the cases.
However, some lenders, prodded by legal challenges, now say officials were not aware of details in all of the cases and vow to resubmit them. It is unclear how many cases are involved but it is believed to be in the tens of thousands.
But Ice said a broader problem was damaging the process of resolving the foreclosures. He said many banks were initiating proceedings without knowing if they in fact own the loans and often failed to produce requested documents.
The securitization of home loans meant many have been sold off to other investors. Banks still own some, but frequently serve as loan servicers on behalf of the actual owner, whether it is another bank or an investor pool.
Some mortgages can be tracked in an electronic system known as MERS, or the Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, that traces transfers among member banks. But the mechanism is not fully reliable, Ice said.
A recent sample among some 400 foreclosure cases Ice’s law firm is handling revealed 71 percent with possible discrepancies in detailing the owners of clients’ loans.
“Few of these processes followed the rules, shortcuts were used at every step,” he said. “The industry itself doesn’t know who owns what.”
BANKS WARY OF BAD LOAN STIGMA
Some banks may be reluctant to step forward, worried about how it might reflect the amount of bad loans on their balance sheets, Ice added.
Lenders, including JPMorgan Chase and Co., Bank of America Corp and Ally Financial Inc, are now scrambling to defend and improve their foreclosure procedures.
Lender Processing Services LPS held a conference call Wednesday to discuss its involvement in the mortgage foreclosure controversy and recent allegations against the company. Through its mortgage default services segment, which constitutes about half of the company’s revenue, LPS is deeply involved in processing mortgage foreclosures. Recently, with mortgage foreclosures heating up, there has been controversy surrounding lenders’ foreclosure procedures, which has led a few major mortgage lenders to halt foreclosures until they can verify that they are following the letter of the law. The main source of contention surrounds a practice called robo-signing. Whereas judicial foreclosure requires each foreclosure to be reviewed and vetted by someone knowledgeable about the case, lenders may have had employees signing foreclosures en masse without review. LPS had previously issued a press release stating that it is not involved in this practice, and it reiterated the point on the call. At this point, we see no reason to believe this is not correct, and we don’t see this as a major issue for the company.
The company also discussed two recent lawsuits filed against it, which allege that LPS illegally splits fees with foreclosure lawyers.
JPMorgan, Bank of America Face `Hydra’ of State Foreclosure Investigations
By Margaret Cronin Fisk – Oct 6, 2010 12:01 AM ET
JPMorgan Chase & Co., Bank of America Corp. and Ally Financial Inc., defending allegations of fraudulent home foreclosures from customers and Congress, may face the most financial peril from investigations by state attorneys general.
Authorities in at least seven states are probing whether lenders used false documents and signatures to justify hundreds of thousands of foreclosures, and the number of these inquiries will grow, according to state officials and legal experts.
“You’re going to see a tremendous amount of activity with all the AGs in the U.S.,” Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray said in an interview. “We have a high degree of skepticism that the corners that were cut are truly legal.”
JPMorgan, Bank of America and Ally have curtailed foreclosures or evictions in 23 states where courts have jurisdiction over home seizures.
While homeowners in those states and elsewhere must usually show damages to win a lawsuit, “attorneys general can just sue over deceptive sales practices and get penalties,” said Christopher Peterson, a University of Utah law professor who specializes in commercial and contract law.
In Ohio, penalties include fines up to $25,000 per violation, with each false affidavit or document considered a violation, according to state law enforcement officials. In Iowa, fines rise to a maximum of $40,000 for each violation.
Foreclosure Freeze
This penalty would apply to “every instance of an affidavit that was filed improperly or every time facts were attested to that weren’t true,” said Cordray. His counterpart in Connecticut, Richard Blumenthal, has called for a freeze on foreclosures and said the submissions are a “possible fraud on the court.”
Officials in Ohio and Connecticut, along with Florida, Texas, North Carolina, Iowa and Illinois, said they are investigating mortgage foreclosure practices.
California Democratic Congressional Delegation Urges Bank Investigations
October 5, 2010
Washington, D.C. – Today, California Democratic Congressional Delegation (CDCD) members sent a letter to Attorney General Holder, Federal Reserve Chair Bernanke, and Comptroller of the Currency Walsh requesting investigations into systemic wrongdoing by financial institutions in their handling of delinquent mortgages, mortgage modifications, and foreclosures. Delegation members have received thousands of complaints from their constituents, which appear to outline a clear pattern of misconduct on the part of lenders and servicers. Recent press accounts have also reinforced the view that these institutions are routinely failing to respond in a timely manner, misplacing requested documents, and misleading both borrowers and the government about loan modifications, forbearances, and other housing related applications.
“It’s clear that even after promising to work with borrowers, and receiving government incentives to do so, financial institutions are simply stringing the American people along,” noted Delegation Chair, Rep. Zoe Lofgren. “After reviewing thousands of complaints from our constituents, it appears that we aren’t dealing with isolated incidents and that a pattern of misconduct and obstruction is present.”
Dear Attorney General Holder, Chairman Bernanke and Comptroller Dugan, As members of the California Democratic Congressional Delegation, we urge you and your respective agencies to investigate possible violations of law or regulations by financial institutions in their handling of delinquent mortgages, mortgage modifications, and foreclosures.
Over the last few years, thousands of our constituents have reported that many financial institutions, despite good faith efforts on the part of most homeowners to work out reasonable loan modifications or simply seek forbearance of foreclosure, routinely fail to respond in a timely manner, misplace requested documents, and send mixed signals about the requirements that need to be met to avoid foreclosures. We are particularly perplexed by this apparent pattern in light of the many incentives Congress and the Obama Administration have offered to servicers and lenders to avoid foreclosures where financially viable, including subsidies and loan guarantees from taxpayers. Avoidable foreclosures end up being unnecessarily costly for homeowners, lenders and servicers, and our housing market, whose health is essential to our economic recovery.
The apparent pattern reported by our constituents leads us to conclude that their problems are not just personal anecdotes anymore. Recent reports that Ally Financial (formerly GMAC) and JP Morgan may have approved thousands of unwarranted foreclosures only amplify our concerns that systemic problems exist in the ways many financial institutions have dealt with homeowners who are seeking to avoid foreclosures.
who are seeking to avoid foreclosures. We are now in the third year of the worst housing crisis we have seen in decades. Far too many families in California, and across the country, continue to lose their homes. While Congress and the Obama Administration have taken steps to help mitigate the housing problem, this devastation has persisted and, in fact, worsened as the country’s unemployment rate increased. We have heard numerous stories of financial institutions being uncooperative at best or misleading and acting in bad faith at worst. These heartbreaking stories are commonplace, persisting across the state and across lenders and servicers. As you can see from the attached document, which highlights examples of casework throughout California, it appears that banks have repeatedly misled and obstructed homeowners from receiving the help Congress and the Administration have sought to provide.
The excuses we have heard from financial institutions are simply not credible three years into this crisis. People in our districts are hurting. We have tried to help them in the face of the many challenges they have faced in their dealings with financial institutions. It is time that banks are held accountable for their practices that have left too many homeowners without real help.
Sincerely,
Zoe Lofgren
The California Democratic Congressional Delegation consists of 34 Democratic members of the U.S. House of Representatives from California. This group outnumbers all other state House delegations – Republicans and Democrats combined.
EILEEN FAGAN, :
Case No. 04 B 23460 (ASH)
Debtor. :
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – x
A P P E A R A N C E S :
LAW OFFICE OF SHMUEL KLEIN, P.C.
Attorneys for Debtor
By: Shmuel Klein, Esq.
268 Route 59
Spring Valley, NY 10977
STEVEN J. BAUM, P.C. Attorneys for Secured Creditor
By: Dennis Jose, Esq.
220 Northpointe Parkway, Suite G
Amherst, NY 14228
ADLAI S. HARDIN, JR.
UNITED STATES BANKRUPTCY JUDGE
DECISION GRANTING SANCTIONS FOR MOTION TO LIFT STAY BASED ON FALSE CERTIFICATION
In In re Gorshstein, 285 B.R. 118 (Bankr. S.D.N.Y. 2002) I granted sanctions against secured creditors in three separate cases where the secured creditors moved to vacate the automatic stay on the basis of false certifications of post-petition defaults. The Gorshstein decision was “provoked by an apparently increasing number of motions in this Court to vacate the automatic stay filed by secured creditors often based on attorney affidavits certifying material post-petition defaults where, in fact, there were no material defaults by the debtors.” 285 B.R. at 120.
The Secured Creditor’s motion to lift the stay in this case is, in the vernacular, a “poster child” for the type of abuse condemned in the Gorshstein decision. It is one of several such motions to come before me in recent months. This decision granting substantial sanctions in favor of the debtor and her attorney is published to reiterate and reinforce my strongly-held view that debtors must not be subjected to the risk of foreclosure and loss of their homes on the basis of false certifications of post-petition defaults.
Jurisdiction
This Court has jurisdiction over this contested matter under 28 U.S.C. §§ 1334(a) and 157(a) and the standing order of reference in this District dated July 10, 1984 (Acting Chief Judge Ward).
This is a core proceeding under 28 U.S.C. § 157(b).
The Facts
By Notice of Motion and Application both dated June 1, 2007 Deutsche Bank Trust Company of America’s f/k/a Bankers Trust Company, as Trustee c/o Homecomings Financial, LLC (the “Secured Creditor”) moved to terminate the automatic stay with respect to the debtor’s residential real property in Stony Point, New York (the “Property”). The Secured Creditor holds by assignment a note dated October 9, 2001 in the amount of $284,750.00 secured by a mortgage on the Property. The Application recited that as of May 30, 2007 there was an unpaid principal balance on the loan of $278,043.61 with interest thereon in the amount of $20,553.51 plus late charges in the amount of $946.28, aggregating $299,543.40.
The debtor filed her petition under Chapter 13 on September 21, 2004. Thus, the debtor’s first post-petition mortgage payment was due for October 2004. Paragraph 3 of the Application states as follows:
As of the 30th day of May, 2007, the Debtor has failed to make 4 post-petition payments in the amount of $4,020.03 which represents the payments due the 1st day of February, 2007 through May, 2007 and has not cured said default.
As amplified below, this statement was false.
Annexed to the Application was an affidavit sworn to by John Cody, an Assistant Vice President of Homecomings Financial Network, sworn to April 3, 2006 in which Mr. Cody swore in paragraph 5:
As of the 31st day of March, 2006, the Debtor has failed to make 2 post-petition payments in the amount of $3,709.17 which represents the payments due the 1st day of February, 2006 through March, 2006 and has not cured said default.
The Cody affidavit was submitted in support of a motion filed by the Secured Creditor in 2006 and was erroneously annexed to the instant motion. The quoted statement from the Cody affidavit was false when made in 2006. Belatedly recognizing that the Cody affidavit applied to the Secured Creditor’s baseless 2006 motion to lift the stay, on June 8, 2007 counsel for the Secured Creditor filed an affidavit sworn to by Dory Goebel, a Bankruptcy Representative of Homecomings Financial, LLC, sworn to June 1, 2007.
In paragraph 5 of his affidavit, Mr. Goebel swore as follows:
As of the 30th day of May, 2007, the Debtor has failed to make 4 post-petition payments in the amount of $4,020.03 which represents the payments due the 1st day of February, 2007 through May, 2007 and has not cured said default.
Mr. Goebel’s sworn statement quoted above was false.
The instant motion was noticed for presentment on June 14 with a hearing date of June 20, 2007 if objections were timely served and filed. On June 6 counsel for the debtor filed the debtor’s affirmation in opposition noting that since the filing of her case she had made all post-petition payments required under the mortgage, and all such payments were cashed by the Secured Creditor.
Copies of the debtor’s payment checks were attached to the opposing affirmation. The debtor sought punitive sanctions for the “frivolous motion,” the Secured Creditor’s second such motion. The Secured
Creditor’s attorney responded with a “Reply Affirtmation [sic] in Support of Secured Creditor’s Motion
to Terminate the Automatic Stay” dated June 13, 2007 (the “Reply Affirmation”). The Reply Affirmation
noted that the initial Application incorrectly annexed the 2006 Cody affidavit and substituted the June 1, 2007 Goebel affidavit quoted above as Exhibit B. The Reply Affirmation also annexed as Exhibit C a document entitled “Post Petition Payment History for: Eileen Fagan BK Case No. 04-23460” with a notation at the bottom “ledger prepared on 06/13/07.” This “Post Petition Payment History” is one of several such documents submitted by the Secured Creditor, all of which are of central importance on this contested matter because, as explained below, they all demonstrate that the debtor was substantially current at all times post-petition. Despite Exhibit C, the Reply Affirmation concludes “that as of the Date of the Motion, the Debtor was due for the Months of February 2007 through May 2007 and the Month of June 2007 had become due.” As amplified below, Exhibit C demonstrates that this statement was false.
The debtor responded by submitting a July 10, 2007 “Sur-Reply Affirmation in Opposition and Request for Attorney Fees” signed by Linda Fagan, the debtor’s mother. The Sur-Reply Affirmation stated in relevant part as follows:
3. My daughter had a nervous breakdown aggravated by this bank about two years ago. Since then, I made each of the monthly mortgage payments to Homecomings which is the servicer for Deutsche Bank Trust Company and they have CASHED thy [sic] payments.
4. The latest submission is an outright lie, deceptive and deliberately out of order. . . .
5. Homecomings said they did not get the March 2007 payment and I immediately went to Western Union and sent them payment — which they accepted –- the day I found out about it.
6. Homecomings deliberately holds the mortgage payment checks for several weeks and then cashes them to create late fees and penalties. They also hold the checks for months, and then put two or three checks all in at once to create a bounce check situation.
7. I sent the May 2007 mortgage on or about May 14, 2007. When the check did not clear, I immediately called Homecomings when our May bank statement was received and inquired if they received the check. After being on hold for 45 minutes, they acknowledged that they received the check, but the account servicing agent did not know why it was not cashed. I called again two weeks later and they now said they never got the check. I called my attorney and he advised me to stop the check and then overnight another check on June 13, 2007. Even though they received it by OVERNIGHT courier on June 14, 2007, it was not cashed until June 27, 2007. See Exhibit “A”.
8. Incredulously [sic], they then tried to cash the May 2007 “lost check” which I stopped (they first said they received and then said they never received) and then sent me notice to me [sic] in July that the check was “returned unpaid”. See Exhibit “B”.
7. [sic] I AM CURRENT. I have not missed a payment and am paying more than I have to. . . .
It is significant that no affidavit contesting Linda Fagan’s statements was submitted by the Secured Creditor.
A hearing on the motion was held on July 17, 2007 attended by the attorneys for both sides. At the hearing the Secured Creditor submitted a revised but undated “Post Petition Payment 1 Paragraph 6 of the Supplemental Reply Affirmation states:
6. This Law Firm regrettably concedes that during the preparation of the Motion for Relief from Stay and the Bank Affidavit, it erroneously represented that the Debtor was due for the months of February through May of 2007 when in fact the Debtor was due for the months of April through May of 2007. (Emphasis in original)
History for: Eileen Fagan,” which I received in evidence as Court Exhibit 1. After hearing oral argument of counsel, I adjourned the hearing to August 22 in order to give the Secured Creditor an opportunity to make a further submission demonstrating, if it could, that the debtor was in arrears post-petition, which did not appear likely in view of the original “Post Petition Payment History” prepared on 06/13/07 and the amended “Post Petition Payment History” marked Court Exhibit 1. After oral argument at the August 22 hearing, I scheduled a final hearing for September 18.
The Secured Creditor’s attorney then submitted a “Supplimental [sic] Reply Affirtmation [sic] in Support of Secured Creditor’s Motion to Terminate the Automatic Stay” dated August 31, 2007 (“Supplemental Reply Affirmation”). The Supplemental Reply Affirmation annexes as Exhibit C a copy of the “Post Petition Payment History” which was marked as Court Exhibit 1 at the July 17 hearing. It also annexes as Exhibit B yet another “Post Petition Payment History” (undated) with numbers slightly different from the numbers contained on Exhibit C (Court Exhibit 1). The Supplemental Reply Affirmation acknowledged error in the original motion,1 but concluded that “when the Motion for Relief was filed on June 1, 2007, the Debtor was delinquent with her post-petition mortgage obligations and due for the months of April 2007 through May 2007.” Once again, as amplified below, all three versions of the Secured Creditor’s Post Petition Payment History demonstrate that the debtor has never been materially delinquent in her post-petition mortgage obligations.
Paragraph 15 of the Supplemental Reply Affirmation states that “As per the most recent information received from the Secured Creditor, the Debtor has paid monies subsequent to the filing of the Motion that would bring her post-petition current.” The Affirmation notes further that the debtor has commenced a 16-count adversary proceeding complaint against the Secured Creditor which raises, inter alia, certain of the allegations of bad faith asserted by the debtor against the Secured Creditor in opposing the motion to lift the stay. Consequently, in the “Wherefore” clause “Secured Creditor respectfully requests a finding that its Motion for Relief dated June 1, 2007 was filed in good faith and said Motion be marked withdrawn with the parties to litigate the issued [sic] raised by the Debtor in her opposition in detail within the confines of the now pending Adversary Proceeding.”
At the September 18 third and final hearing on this motion to lift stay, I asked the Secured Creditor’s attorney to explain and confirm the significance of the several Post Petition Payment History computer printouts submitted by Secured Creditor in purported support of the motion. To that we now turn.
The Debtor’s Post-Petition Payment History For purposes of this analysis, I shall focus on the Post Petition Payment History which was submitted by the Secured Creditor at the July 17 hearing and marked as Court Exhibit 1, a copy of which was submitted as Exhibit C to the Secured Creditor’s Supplemental Reply Affirmation.
Since the debtor’s Chapter 13 case was filed on September 21, 2004, the first postpetition mortgage payment was due October 1, 2004, with a two-week grace period.
The following reproduces the Court Exhibit 1 version of the debtor’s Post Petition Payment History in material part:
2 The “Date” column apparently lists the dates when the Secured Creditor cashed and/or credited the debtor’s payments, not the dates when the payments were delivered to or received by the Secured Creditor. See paragraph 6 of the Linda Fagan affirmation, quoted above.
<SNIP>
Conclusion
Motions to lift the stay may be routine and inconsequential to secured creditors and their counsel. But to a debtor and his or her family, such a motion and the consequent loss of the family home may be devastating. Most creditors and counsel are conscientious. But some are callous by design or inadvertence, as exemplified by this motion and two others presented to the Court the same week. The danger here is that a debtor who does not have an attorney or the resources of intellect or spirit to defend against a baseless motion may lose his/her home despite being current on post-petition mortgage and plan payments.
I know of no way to protect against such an eventuality if no material consequence attaches to the filing of motions based upon false certifications of fact. Secured creditors and their counsel who know that filing a false motion to lift the stay will result in material sanctions if caught will undoubtedly be motivated to a higher standard of care.
Bay State lawyers who specialize in fighting home seizures are declaring war on the banking industry, which is admitting that thousands of U.S. foreclosure cases might involve flawed paperwork.
“Foreclosure defense and fraud litigation is going to make (1998’s $200 billion tobacco-industry settlement) look like a grocery-store slip-and-fall case,” Nantucket lawyer Jamie Ranney predicted after Bank of America halted foreclosures in 23 states over the weekend.
The moratorium, which GMAC and JP Morgan Chase launched last week, doesn’t currently include Massachusetts. But Attorney General Martha Coakley has asked lenders to add the Bay State to the list.
Congratulations… Tywanna Thomas makes Good Morning America. Tywanna Thomas is/was an employee of Lender Processing Services/ DOCX and these documents were executed in DOCX’s office in Alpharetta, GA.
You may see her many signatures and employers below. “It’s not just her”
“If your going to take my house away from me you better be able to prove you own my house and you have the right to take the house away” -GERRY WILLIS
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Link to the source: ABCNEWS.com
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http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/YourMoney/video/banks-freeze-faulty-foreclosures-11792395
In addition to renewing it’s Motion for Summary Judgment, Plaintiff has also filed a Motion for Entry of Protective Order pursuant to M.R. Civ. P. 26 (c). This motion is likewise denied.
Rule 26(c) provides that “for good cause shown” a court may enter a protective order “which justice requires to protect a party or person from annoyance, embarrassment, oppression, or undue burden or expense….” M.R.Civ. P. 26(c). Plaintiff seeks a protective order prohibiting the dissemination of discovery materials obtained in this case.” Plaintiff’s Motion for Entry of Protective Order at 7. As grounds for it’s motion, Plaintiff points to the embarrassment GMAC and it’s employees have suffered, and will continue to suffer, from the posting of excerpts from Stephan’s deposition transcript on an Internet blog. The court is not persuaded that the Plaintiff has shown the requisite “ good cause” to justify entry of a protective order in this case. See e.g. Public Citizen v. Liggett Group, Inc., 858 F.2d 775, 789 (1st Cir. 1988) (agreeing with Second Circuit in noting that “the party seeking a protective order has burden of showing that good cause is not shown, the discovery materials in question should not receive judicial protection and therefore would be open to the public for inspection”) (citation omitted).
Stephan’s deposition was taken in advance a legitimate purpose, and the testimony elicited has directed probative value to dispute. Attorney Cox did not himself take action other that to share the deposition transcript with an attorney in Florida. That the testimony reveals corporate practices that GMAC finds embarrassing in not enough to justify issuance of a protective order. Further, Plaintiff has failed to establish that GMAC has been harmed specifically as a result of the dissemination of the June 7, 2010 deposition transcript, given that similarly embarrassing deposition from December 10, 2009 Florida deposition also appears on the Internet, and will remain even were this Court to grant Plaintiff’s motion. Accordingly, because Plaintiff has failed to satisfy it’s burden of persuasion under Rule 26(c), it’s Motion for Entry of Protective Order is denied.
LOXAHATCHEE, Fla.—Israel Machado’s foreclosure started out as a routine affair. In the summer of 2008, as the economy began to soften, Mr. Machado’s pool-cleaning business suffered and like millions of other Americans, he fell behind on his $400,000 mortgage.
But Mr. Machado’s response was unlike most other Americans’. Instead of handing his home over to the lender, IndyMac Bank FSB, he hired Ice Legal LP in nearby Royal Palm Beach to fight the foreclosure. The law firm researched the history of Mr. Machado’s loan and found two interesting facts.
First, the affidavits IndyMac used to file the foreclosure were signed by a so-called robo-signer named Erica A. Johnson-Seck, who routinely signed 6,000 documents a week related to foreclosures and bankruptcy. That volume, the court decided, meant Ms. Johnson-Seck couldn’t possibly have thoroughly reviewed the facts of Mr. Machado’s case, as required by law.
Secondly, IndyMac (now called OneWest Bank) no longer owned the loan—a group of investors in a securitized trust managed by Deutsche Bank did. Determining that IndyMac didn’t really have standing to foreclose, a judge threw out the case and ordered IndyMac to pay Mr. Machado’s $30,000 legal bill.
Mr. Machado and his lawyer, Tom Ice, say they now want to convince the owners of the mortgage to cut Mr. Machado’s loan balance to between $150,000 and $200,000—the current selling price for comparable homes in his community near West Palm Beach. “The whole intent was to get them to come to the negotiating table, to get me in a fixed-rate mortgage that worked,” Mr. Machado said.
INDEX NO. 16 150-2008
SUPREME COURT – STATE OF NEW YORK
I.A.S. PART 17 – SUFFOLK COUNTY
P R E S E N T :
Hon. PETER H. MAYER
Justice of the Supreme Court
BENEFICIAL HOMEOWNER SERVICE CORPORATION,
v.
TODD L. MASOTTI
In this foreclosure action, the plaintiff filed a summons and complaint on April 24, 2008, which essentially alleges that the defendant-homeowner(s), Todd L. Masotti and Michelle Casey, defaulted in payments with regard to a mortgage, dated September 20,2004, in the principal amount of $311,842.43, for the premises located at 38 Crestwood Lane, Farmingville, New York. Although the plaintiff annexes a power of attorney permitting “LPS Default Solutions, Inc.” to act on its behalf, the affidavit of merit is by an employee of “Lender Processing Services, Inc.” According to the court’s database, a foreclosure settlement conference was held on June 23,2010. The plaintiff now seeks a default order of reference and requests amendment of the caption to remove the “Doe” defendants. The plaintiffs application is denied for the following reasons:
(1) failure to submit evidentiary proof of compliance with the requirements of CPLR 3215(f), including but not limited to a proper affidavit of facts by the plaintiff [or by plaintiffs agent, provided there is proper proof in evidentiary form of such agency relationship], or a complaint verified by the plaintiff and not merely by an attorney or non-party, such as a servicer, who has no personal knowledge; and
(2) failure to submit an affidavit in support, which is in a properly sworn form, as required by CPLR 15 2 3 0 9( b) .
This constitutes the Decision and Order of the Court.
Dated: August 6, 2010
State your full name and current position.
Provide us with your definition of a document custodian.
What is your exact job title?
What are your responsibilities?
Where are you employed?
Where does your company store original documents?
How are they stored?
If you outsource this storage, who is the outsource provider?
How do you confirm delivery to the outsource provider?
How do you retrieve original documents?
How long do you save original documents?
Do you have a written original document destruction policy?
Please explain it and produce a copy of the policy.
Do you retain images of original of all documents?
How are they retained?
Where are they retained?
How long are they retained?
What type of computer system is used for the image retention?
Do you have a Records Compliance or Management Department?
Explain how it works, who is employed there, and where it is located.
Describe all information that you store electronically.
Do you have an ESI manager?
Who, where does he or she work, what does he or she do?
What is your policy on the retention of electronically stored documents?
Do you have a written policy for ESI documents?
Do you have any automated archiving systems?
If yes, then explain how they work and how documents are achieved.
Where are the archived documents stored?
How do you save data to a file that has already been achieved?
State the name of the director or manager of your document archiving operation.
How do you store data acquired through mergers or acquisitions?
How do you retrieve historical data from the archives?
Explain the process in detail.
Do you have an organizational-wide data map or inventory of all electronically stored data?
Can you produce a copy of that map?
Do you have any litigation ready data files?
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State if any data related to this case has been destroyed?
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Explain all of the steps your company has taken in this case to preserve ESI evidence?
Have you created a data file of ESI for this case?
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Explain all of the steps that were taken to create the ESI file for this case.
Are there any ESI that you could not find or include in the file?
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If any of the data still exists, have you or anyone in your company investigated the restoration of any deleted or damaged data?
When, who did this and what did they do?
If not, then why not?
With respect to the ESI file that has been created for this case, have the documents been scrubbed for metadata?
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Was a scrubbed metadata file created?
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Do you backup your data every day?
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What is the format for the media in the ESI file created for this case?
Did you ever stop backing up or archiving data in this case in anticipation of litigation?
If so, when, why, and who ordered such actions?
When was a litigation hold placed on the destruction of any of the ESI data related to this case?
Who issued the hold and how was it implemented?
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State the names of all of the servers and the location of all such servers that contained any ESI data related to this case.
State your current policy on saving company email.
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State all of your email format types, date ranges for retention of email, and the names of all custodians.
Please identify all types of files used by your company, the capacity of such files, the creation dates and how those dates are preserved, the modification dates and how they are recorded, and the maximum size of each file.
Does your company employ a de-duplication policy as to ESI data?
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If so, identify all such ESI data.
Do any lawyers representing you in this case have access to any of your data files?
IF so, please explain the extent of such access, how it is tracked, and purpose of the same?
Have you migrated any ESI data in this case from older, disparate media sources into modern managed tools?
If so, explain in detail the older data systems, how the migration occurred, and explain the new storage media used?
Name all of the parties on the data migration team or group.
Do you have a Legal Records Management Team?
Name all of the Team members and the location?
Was the Team involved in this case?
If yes, then explain in detail the extent of their involvement.
Do you use a third-party IT vendor for ESI data capture, storage and archiving?
If so, who and how long have they been used?
Who is the on-site representative for your ESI vendor?
Does your backup vendor use DLT4, LT01 or 4MM tapes?
What type of backup software does the vendor use?
Do they use Backup Exec, NetBackup, Legato Net Worker, Trivoli Storage Manager, ArcServe, CommVault Galaxy or HP Omniback?
Describe all messaging systems used by your company.
Do you use Lotus Notes?
Do you use Novell GroupWise or any others?
How is the messaging data saved, backed up and archived?
Do you convert the messages media to any other type of media for storage?
If so, describe the media and how this is accomplished and by whom?
Explain all due diligence programs and procedures used to verify the integrity of your data?
Explain all due diligence programs and procedures used to secure and safeguard your data.
Do you maintain custody logs on the transfer of any ESI data?
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Who maintains and where are they located?
Do you have a “Best Practices” guide for of the operations described herein?
Can you produce it?
Gretchen Morgenson is a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist.Gretchen is one of the first journalist who began reporting on the mortgage crisis and understands exactly what is happening all around us. We thank Gretchen for all her hard work and we are proud to say she is aware of StopForeclosureFraud.com 🙂
Gretchen Morgenson, Pulitzer Prize winning New York Times writer, interviewed for Pacific Street’s upcoming feature doc on the financial crisis. Begun in 2007, this film (yet untitled) has strayed in many directions; covered much ground, and, when completed, will offer a very different perspective on the personalities and companies that have played the principal leads in the longest-running soap opera in this country’s financial history. A Ken Burns documentary it is not…
Below is a document that Lender Processing Services, Inc. or it’s many subsidiaries submits by wire transmission to the foreclosure mill with instructions NOT to name the actual owner of the note on the foreclosure but in the name of the servicer!
“FORECLOSURE SHOULD BE IN THE NAME OF ”
It clearly states the names of the real parties:
SERVICER
TRUST
TRUSTEE/NOTE-OWNER
BORROWER
A foreclosure is rarely commenced under the “Real Entity.” So why do they keep this from us when they knew all along the real parties of interest? This was only discovered during an actual case or we would have never found this.
Coakley begins probe, calls for foreclosure moratorium
By Herald Staff
Saturday, October 2, 2010 –
Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley called on Bank of America and other major creditors to delay all foreclosure proceedings and pledged to begin her own investigation in light of recent revelations that they may not have complied with the law.
Bank of America announced Friday it was delaying foreclosures in 23 states, not including Massachusetts, as it examines whether it rushed the foreclosure process for thousands of homeowners without reading the documents.
“Our office has been extremely active in holding major banks and Wall Street firms accountable during this foreclosure crisis. We are concerned about the revelations that Bank of America and other major lenders have failed to properly review foreclosure documentation,” Coakley said yesterday in a statement. “Our office is now investigating this apparent failure of major creditors to follow state foreclosure law to ensure that Massachusetts homeowners are properly protected. In light of these revelations, we are asking Bank of America and other major creditors to cease foreclosure proceedings for Massachusetts homeowners until they can demonstrate that they have complied with Massachusetts law.”
CONTINUE READING…..YAHOO
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