HUD SETTLES RESPA KICKBACK CASE AGAINST FIDELITY NATIONAL FINANCIAL

Title company to pay $4.5 million and cease paying brokers referral fees

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) today announced an agreement with Fidelity National Financial, Inc. (FNF) to settle allegations the title company paid real estate brokers and other settlement service providers improper kickbacks or referral fees in violation of the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA). Read the full text of the agreement announced today.

HUD claimed FNF and its affiliates and subsidiaries engaged in a widespread and years-long campaign to pay real estate brokers kickbacks for the referral of real estate settlement services, including home warranties and title insurance.FNF agreed to cease this practice and pay HUD $4.5 million to resolve the complaint.

“RESPA is very clear that paying fees or providing anything of value for the simple act of referring business is a violation of law,” said Acting FHA Commissioner Robert Ryan. “This agreement should be a signal to others that these business practices won’t be tolerated.”

HUD alleges that FNF, through its subsidiaries, paid fees for the referral of settlement service business in violation of Section 8 of RESPA. To facilitate these payments, real estate brokerages entered into “Application Service Provider Agreements” which provided the real estate brokerages access to TransactionPoint, a web-based platform that automates the real estate transaction from listing to closing. This online system also allows the brokers to select real estate settlement providers for a particular real estate transaction. The real estate brokerages, in turn, entered into Sub-License Agreements with subsidiaries of FNF to enable FNF’s subsidiaries to be listed in TransactionPoint as a provider of settlement services. As part of the Sub-Licensee Agreement, HUD alleges that FNF’s subsidiaries paid the real estate brokerages a fee for each referral of real estate settlement services.

RESPA was enacted in 1974 to provide consumers advance disclosures of settlement charges and to prohibit illegal kickbacks and excessive fees in the homebuying process. Section 8 of RESPA prohibits a person from giving or accepting anything of value in exchange for the referral of settlement service business.

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HUD’s mission is to create strong, sustainable, inclusive communities and quality affordable homes for all. HUD is working to strengthen the housing market to bolster the economy and protect consumers; meet the need for quality affordable rental homes: utilize housing as a platform for improving quality of life; build inclusive and sustainable communities free from discrimination; and transform the way HUD does business. More information about HUD and its programs is available on the Internet at www.hud.gov and espanol.hud.gov.

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BLOOMBERG:

The Michigan attorney general’s office subpoenaed three mortgage processors including Lender Processing Services as part of a state probe of robo-signing.

Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette said his office serviced Lender Processing, Fidelity National Financial Inc. (FNF) and CT Corporation System with investigative subpoenas as affiliates of DocX, a mortgage service support provider. The attorney general said he is seeking information about documents signed by DocX employees as “Linda Green.”

The subpoenas are part of a criminal investigation into questionable mortgage documentation filed with Michigan’s Register of Deeds offices, Schuette’s said in a statement today. The subpoenas were approved by the state court in Lansing June 13 and require responses by June 30, Schuette said.

Continue reading [BLOOMBERG]

PRESS RELEASE:

Schuette Issues Subpoenas in Criminal Probe of Mortgage Processors

Contact:  John Sellek or Joy Yearout 517-373-8060
Agency: Attorney General

LANSING– Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette today announced that he has issued criminal investigative subpoenas against national mortgage servicing support providers in an expansion of his office’s investigation into questionable mortgage documentation filed with Michigan’s Register of Deeds offices during the current foreclosure crisis.

“Allegations of forged mortgage documents are very serious and require a thorough investigation,” said Schuette.  “I will continue to work closely with federal and local authorities to find answers on behalf of Michigan homeowners.”

The Attorney General is empowered to pursue criminal investigative subpoenas under the Code of Criminal Procedure (MCL 767A.2(2)).  Schuette’s office has filed criminal investigative subpoenas against DocX, which provides mortgage support services, including creating, processing or recording mortgage assignments or other mortgage documentation.  In addition to DocX, the following companies affiliated with DocX were served with investigative subpoenas by Schuette’s office:

·         Lender Processing Services, Inc.;

·         Fidelity National Financial, Inc.; and

·         CT Corporation System.

Schuette’s office has requested documents regarding the mortgage processing companies’ operations in relation to foreclosure and/or bankruptcy-related document processing.  The subpoenas were approved by the 54B District Court in Ingham County on Monday, June 13, 2011, and the information must be provided to the Attorney General’s Office on or before June 30, 2011.

In April 2011, Schuette launched an investigation after county officials across the state reported that they suspected Assignment of Mortgage documents filed in their offices may have been forged.  A recent “60 Minutes” news broadcast had shown that the name “Linda Green” was signed to thousands of mortgage-related documents nationwide, but with many different variations in handwriting.  County officials in Michigan reviewed their files and found similar documents, thus raising questions about the authenticity of the documents filed.

Schuette is investigating whether certain mortgage processing companies permitted such robosigning of legal documents filed in connection with Michigan foreclosures.  Apart from the question of whether falsified signatures were used, robosigning may also involve individuals signing affidavits to signify that mortgage documentation was properly prepared without ever conducting a proper review of the documents.  Although Michigan is a non-judicial foreclosure state, Schuette is reviewing whether robosigned documents may have been filed with courts in limited cases.

Schuette urges any current or former employees of mortgage servicers or processing companies with knowledge of unlawful practices related to mortgage servicing or the execution of documents in Michigan to call the Attorney General’s Corporate Oversight Division at (517) 373-1160 (517) 373-1160 .

Schuette is also continuing to work with fellow attorneys general in a national workgroup examining mortgage lending practices, including the robosigning issue and consumer protection concerns affecting homeowners nationwide.

Schuette reminds Michigan homeowners that citizens do not need to pay to speak with their lender or servicer or to obtain outside assistance with foreclosure issues.  Free local assistance with foreclosure issues can be found by calling the Michigan State Housing Development Authority at (866) 946-7432 (866) 946-7432.

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source: http://www.michigan.gov

Abigail Field’s latest article is a must read. Forget the energizer bunny, this just keeps going and going…it does not stop.

from DailyFinance

When an LPS client has a mortgage that goes into default, Lofton explains, LPS starts managing the loan. In order to do that, the appropriate LPS employees are given login information for the bank’s database. As a security measure, each login is unique. That login grants access to the bank’s entire database of current and defaulted loans, so that the employee can address whatever problem exists. For example, if a payment that should have been applied to a defaulted mortgage was accidentally credited to a current mortgage, the LPS employee needs access to the current mortgage to fix the error.

When an employee can’t fix or reconcile data in an account, she is supposed to enlist the help of her supervisor, and if needed, her supervisor’s supervisor. Each manager also has unique login information, and each bank apparently has additional security protocols that LPS employees are supposed to follow. If the employees and supervisors were following the rules, all would be relatively well. But according to Lofton, they were not:

“…109. …most of the [LPS] Associate Team members had gained unauthorized access to the logins and passwords of their team associates and supervisors for all of the bank servicers’ computers.

110. With this unauthorized access to the Bank’s computers, the [LPS] associates could go into the banks computer files and manipulate the data….

112. I was particularly concerned that during “crunch” times …Team Associates were cutting corners….

116. When an employee cut corners, the employee left out one or more steps that should have been performed and had to make something up.

117. The problem caused by cutting corners might not come to light until six months down the road when an attorney asks questions about the billing record.”

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While some lenders do utilize web-based proprietary systems (MortgageServ, Res.net, etc) for insurance and foreclosure tracking, the majority of the lenders in the US (including Bank of America, Aurora Loan Services, and OneWest) utilize the Fidelity LPS system, which is maintained by Fidelity National Financial. It seems almost impossible to believe all of our banks would allow a single point of failure in our nation’s financial systems, however a certain level of cockiness is certainly warranted after successfully pulling off the largest series of cons in our nation’s history.

The LPS system can be accessed several ways. Using Internet Explorer, Balboa and Assurant agents are able to query every field within the system via the web based Lending Portal Login for all of their clients. The information is then used to build all of the AxsPoint/Cool reports utilized to track Force Placed and REO information on the CCS & PAC systems. The tracker then places the information on Clientsource for the servicer to view.

These systems are all web-based, because while the banksters do practice “honor amongst thieves,” each individual banks still likes to hide a certain level of information from each other to allow the possibility of stealing from each other while stealing from you. Web-based systems allow them to control the information visible to each other.

The LPS System

Pew family trusts which I am a beneficiary and/or remainderman have maintained
investments in various banks, mutual funds, and other entities that maintain
interests in various shares, mortgage backed securities and/or debt issuances and I
have been a shareholder in many mortgage companies including Fannie Mae,
Bear Stearns, JPMorganChase, Washington Mutual, MGIC, Ocwen and Radian,
many of which are members, owners and shareholders in Mortgage Electronic
Registration Systems, Inc. [MERS].

© 2010 Nye Lavalle, Pew Mortgage Institute
•10675 Pebble Cove Lane • Boca Raton, FL 33498
561/860-7632 • mortgagefrauds@aol.com

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