You might recall this law firm who is accused of forging 1,000+ deeds, and most recently Freddie Mac instructed its mortgage servicers to stop referring foreclosure cases to them.

From The Baltimore Sun-

A Baltimore judge summoned attorneys from a large foreclosure law firm Monday to explain whether signatures on key documents were genuine, part of the fallout from revelations last year that foreclosures nationwide were being processed based on deficient — or fraudulent — paperwork.

From the Baltimore Sun [link]

Freddie Mac has instructed its mortgage servicers to stop referring foreclosure cases to Shapiro & Burson, the Virginia law firm accused of improper handling of more than 1,000 deeds for Maryland homes in foreclosure, the mortgage giant reported this week.

Prosecutors in Prince George’s County began investigating the firm in March after a paralegal formerly employed there filed a complaint alleging that deeds and foreclosure paperwork contained fraudulent signatures.

Come hungry…close a loan electronically within 15 minutes and with doughnuts. Not like it took any longer the paper route!

Providing all the ‘errors’ and ‘mistakes’ currently happening in foreclosure land, just hope your eNote/eMortgage doesn’t get deleted by accident.

via Housing Wire:

Harry Gardner, president of SigniaDocs, said the perfect infrastructure is one that manages all mortgage documents electronically, but the number of loans in the Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems’ eRegistry is about 200,000, or “a small fraction of mortgages written in the last 10 years.”

“And by eMortgage, we mean truly paperless not some hybrid of some paper and some electronic documentation,” Gardener said. “Ten years ago, we were saying mainstream eMortgage documentation was three to five years away, and I’m happy to say that mainstream eMortgage documentation is now three to five years away.”

continue reading….  Housing Wire

For you to understand the plan the financial institutions have you need to grasp the following. Will MERS patterns continue? Imagine the price you will pay when these files are hacked or manipulated.

Everyone knows by now that MERS was ‘invented’ to keep costs low for the banks, reduce the risk of record-keeping errors and make it easier to keep track of loans for the banks not the borrowers. By these actions, not only has MERS eliminated crucial chain in title documents, has proven in many court cases to assign absolutely nothing because it had no power to negotiate the note but also eliminated an enormous amount of county revenues.

Last week SFF wrote about the latest invention planned to coexist with MERS called SmartSAFE, which will be used for creating, signing, storing, accessing and managing the lifecycle of electronic mortgage documents. According to Wave’s eSignSystems Executive VP Kelly Purcell, “Mortgages are sold several times throughout the life of a loan, and electronic mortgages address the problem of the ‘lost note,’ while improving efficiency in the process.”

This goes a step forward of what MERS can do today.

Will this process eliminate recording paper mortgages/deeds from county records? Eliminate fees that counties in trouble desperately need? THIS IS VERY DANGEROUS.

Still with me? Finally, according to CUinsight, a sample eNote in the form of a MRG Category 1 classified SMARTDoc, was successfully delivered to Xerox’s BlitzDocs eVault, a virtual repository that connects directly to the MERS^® eRegistry and eDelivery systems, where it was electronically signed and registered.

Adding the finishing touches to permit MERS access to future eNotes? I say this is the master plan.

Looking forward to what MA John O’Brien, the Essex County register of deeds, NC Register of deeds Jeff Thigpen and NY Suffolk County, former county clerk Ed Romaine’s approach is after they read what they plan on doing to land records. If they thought it was limited to the elimination of recording fees for assignments of mortgage, they are mistaken.

Questions remain as to why replace something that has been working for so long? Why continue with MERS, a system which has failed in many ways? MERS is under investigation for fraud is it not? Why in a time where mortgage fraud is wide spread, will anyone even trust using electronic devices to manage possibly future trillions of dollars worth?

Say farewell to a tradition that has been here for well over 300 years. Eliminating ‘paper’ will put promissory notes and  mortgage related documents in great jeopardy. No computer system in the world is secure [PERIOD].

Before you go down to the “New Device” take a look back when THE FLORIDA BANKER’S ASSOCIATION ADMITTED THAT NOTES ARE DESTROYED:

This is a direct quote from the Florida Banker’s Association Comments to the Supreme Court of Florida files September 30, 2009:

“It is a reality of commerce that virtually all paper documents related to a note and mortgage are converted to electronic files almost immediately after the loan is closed. Individual loans, as electronic data, are compiled into portfolios which are transferred to the secondary market, frequently as mortgage-backed securities.

The reason “many firms file lost note counts as a standard alternative pleading in the complaint” is because the physical document was deliberately eliminated to avoid confusion immediately upon its conversion to an electronic file. See State Street Bank and Trust Company v. Lord, 851 So. 2d 790 (Fla. 4th DCA 2003). Electronic storage is almost universally acknowledged as safer, more efficient and less expensive than maintaining the originals in hard copy, which bears the concomitant costs of physical indexing, archiving and maintaining security. It is a standard in the industry and becoming the benchmark of modern efficiency across the spectrum of commerce—including the court system.”

Now if there is no issues surrounding what everyone is shouting from their roof tops, then why integrate a new software that was suppose to have been implemented already to “Improves Efficiency & Transparency of Electronic Mortgage Transactions” within MERS itself?

THEY KNOW THEY HAVE A PROBLEM!

Now from SYS-CON on SmartSAFE

“During the foreclosure crisis of the last few years we saw many instances where the original and subsequent paperwork was lost, destroyed or misfiled when loans were bought and sold,” commented Kelly Purcell, Executive Vice President for Wave’s eSignSystems division. “Mortgages are sold several times throughout the life of a loan, and electronic mortgages address the problem of the ‘lost note,’ while improving efficiency in the process.”

This will debut during next week’s MBA National Technology in Mortgage Banking Conference and Expo 2011 (at the Westin Diplomat Resort & Spa in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.).

Will this be the new system that will eventually take over MERS as MOM?

This one is both “Smart & Safe” <wink>

By ABIGAIL FIELD Posted 1:30 PM 03/09/11

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.

DinSFLA Here: Now if we just put these time frames such as ‘1999’ with all that is happening today we arrive to some answers…Don’t we?

Electronic communications make it possible to conduct old transactions in new forms.  Some of the oldest kinds of transactions governed by law are transactions in real estate:  for example, sales, leases and mortgages.  In the Middle Ages transactions in real estate were conducted symbolically, without paper or signatures.  Writing, printing and more universal literacy brought paper deeds, mortgages and leases, memorialized by words on paper with manual signatures.   These were filed in public records to establish who had rightful title to any piece of land.  Several centuries have gone by since that initial migration to the then-new technology of paper documents and manual signatures.  A new technology of computers, software to run them, and electronic communications has come to replace paper.  The law of real property must now make a transition to accommodate the new technology.  The efficiency of real estate markets makes this imminently necessary.

This long dependence on paper, however, casts up certain barriers to using electronic communications to carry on real estate transactions.  The law of the states of the United States has many “statute of fraud” requirements that inhibit the use of electronic communications.  Statute of fraud requirements put total and express reliance upon paper documents and manual signatures to make transactions enforceable.  No paper, no enforcement.  These same requirements have also made it more difficult to develop electronic analogues to transactions in paper that are equally enforceable.

The first step to remedy the problem took place in 1999 when the Uniform Law Commissioners promulgated the Uniform Electronic Transactions Act (UETA).  This act adjusted statute of fraud provisions to include electronic “records” and “signatures” for the memorialization of all kinds of transactions, including basic transactions in real estate.  It is possible to have sale contracts, mortgage instruments (in whatever form a jurisdiction uses) and promissory notes memorialized in electronic form with electronic signatures that will now be treated the equal of the same paper documents with manual signatures.  This is the result of the widespread enactment of UETA and of the subsequent enactment of the Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act (E-Sign) by Congress.

Real estate documents must be recorded on public records to be effective.  Recording takes place in most states in a county office devoted to keeping these records.  Recording protects current interests in real estate by clarifying who holds those interests.  The chain of title leading to the current title-holder, meaning the historic record of documents relating to transactions for a specific piece of real estate, establishes the marketability of that piece of real estate by the current owner of interests in it.  The real estate records establish this chain of title.  State law governs these local recording offices, and there are requirements in the law of every state relating to the originality and authenticity of paper documents that are presented for recording.  UETA included optional provisions dealing with governmental authority, including that of local governments, to accept and utilize electronic records.  However, not all states adopted these optional provisions, and confusion still persisted whether these provisions, coupled with the rest of UETA, authorized recordation of electronic records.

The Uniform Real Property Electronic Recording Act (URPERA) removes any doubt with regard to the ability of a local recording office to accept and otherwise process electronic documents and signatures for recording.  Further, there must be an orderly conversion of every recording office in the United States for electronic recording to become accepted universally.  That will be a complex process, but it needs a starting point in the law.  URPERA, promulgated by the Uniform Law Commissioners in 2004, provides that essential start.

The act does three fairly simple things that will have monumental effect.  First, it establishes that any requirement for originality, for a paper document or for a writing manually signed before it may be recorded, is satisfied by an electronic document and signature.  This is essentially an express extension of the principles of UETA and E-Sign to the specific requirements for recording documents relating to real estate transactions in any state.  Second, it establishes what standards a recording office must follow and what it must do to make electronic recording effective.  For example, the office must comply with standards set by the board established in a state to set them.  It must set up a system for searching and retrieving electronic documents.  There are a minimum group of requirements established in URPERA.  Third, URPERA establishes the board that sets statewide standards and requires it to set uniform standards that must be implemented in every recording office.

These may be simple steps in the law, but the entire process of implementing electronic recording of electronic real estate documents will be complex from state to state.  Inserting URPERA in the law of a state requires careful scrutiny of its real estate law.  If paper documents are effective, for example, when they are time-stamped when delivered to a recording office, when should electronic documents that may be delivered electronically when an office is closed be considered effective?  Answers to questions like this one will take some work and some complex decisions as URPERA is considered for enactment in any state.

Notwithstanding this need for careful effort, it is important to make the start on electronic recording of real estate documents.  Real estate transactions involve billions of dollars in the United States.  The efficiency of real estate markets depends upon the adoption of technology to make them faster and more competitive.  After UETA and E-Sign, the key is URPERA.  Every state needs to consider it as soon as possible.

More info…ElectronicRecording.org

RELATED ARTICLE:

Electronic Property Document Recording (ERDS)

Via: perfectreign

Introduction

As a manager with the Los Angeles County Registrar Recorder, I am in charge of the software development team who creates applications to handle property document recording. Whenever one buys, sells or refinances a house or land, property documents are generated. These documents must be submitted to a County Recorder for storage and indexing to be made available as a public record. Los Angeles County – having well over 10 million residents – is the most populous county in the United States and contains 88 separate cities. As such, my office records – or processes – over 2 million property document recordings per year.
Until now, each one of those documents must be brought in by hand, looked over, entered into our application and then scanned for permanent storage. (The current system was brought online in January 2007, as documented by this video: ELECTRONIC RECORDING ARCHIVE – 2007)The transport, handling and mailing back of paper documents is an overwhelming task. It is also very expensive both in terms of labor and time. For years, the various county Recorder offices wished to pursue something more streamlined. With the advent of newer, less expensive and more accessible technology, the possibility of scanning in documents at the title company (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Title_insurance) offices and electronically sending these documents to the county offices is a reality. State law, however, impeded the process for many years. Up until today, only Orange and San Bernardino counties were allowed by law to electronically record title company documents.
In order to change this, several County Recorders worked with the State Legislature and Attorney General office to pass a law (AB 578 – http://ag.ca.gov/erds1/) entitled the Electronic Recording Delivery Act, which enabled a statewide standard and governance for an Electronic Recording Delivery System (ERDS). Los Angeles decided to partner with Orange, Riverside and San Diego counties to move forward with an in-house developed system, which allowed for economies of scale, flexible implementation and leveraged the 10-year electronic recording experiences of the Orange County Clerk-Recorder. The new system was dubbed, SECURE. It was developed by in-house staff, along with a contractor, who also maintains (as a vendor) the current Orange County recorder system. All four counties own the software and work together to move forward with improvements.[CLICK ABOVE FOR LARGER IMAGE]The above screen shows the common submitter client to be used by title companies, service providers and other institutions in order to submit documents. In this case a Deed is being prepared to be sent to Los Angeles County. The submitter – if authorized – is able to send these documents to any county in the system.Each county participating in the SECURE system is able to leverage the infrastructure built for the system and hosted at the Orange County data center. This data center is a purpose-built facility designed for extreme reliability and high availability. All title companies and other submitters – such as banks – will submit documents through an encrypted Internet connection to the Orange County data center. The documents will be held there until the various participating county recorders pick them up and process them.The structure will look similar to this:All submitters – Financial Institutions such as banks, Title Companies and eventually governmental departments such as the IRS and SSA –are able to use the common client, submit to the common data center and be assured that their documents are routed to the appropriate County Recorder.The system started out on December 1, 2009 with only Orange and Los Angeles counties active. Within six months, it is expected that other counties will be brought online. As the system is enhanced and developed title companies will be allowed to submit more documents and eventually scale back their paper handling processes altogether.This will result in a decrease in costs to the title companies as well as to the counties as a result of paper handling efficiencies. Of the two million annual documents recorded and by the Los Angeles County Recorder, 60% will be able to be processed eventually through this system. Since each document must currently be mailed back to the customer by the recorder, an annual savings in postage and mail handling is expected to show efficiencies.Once the document has been submitted to the Recorder office, it will be examined and – if valid – accepted for recording. The document will be stored in the recording archive and is available for further activities as needed by the general public.[CLICK ABOVE FOR A LARGER IMAGE]After the document has been recorded, the lead sheet (in the case of LA County, who attaches a separate sheet to the front of each document) and the first page are returned to the submitter. They are then able to print and mail the document back to the customer.[CLICK ABOVE FOR A LARGER IMAGE]As seen in the above image, the recorded document has been automatically returned to the submitter. At this stage, the process is complete for the county recorder.Since the SECURE (www.secure-erds.com) group owns the software, the counties will be free to upgrade and enhance the software to fit future needs. These future processes will include an interface to allow banking institutions direct access to send documents such as reconveyances and liens directly from their internal systems. This will further reduce costs as those documents are currently delivered via certified mail. Further enhancements will include electronic delivery of notary signatures, when that becomes allowed in the state. Because the system is built to abstract the back-end recording system from the delivery system, any number of California counties are able to join as participants and leverage the infrastructure already built by Orange, LA, Riverside and San Diego counties.

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