Rachel Maddow reports on one North Carolina town standing up to the big banks that destroyed the housing market and the lives of many local families with foreclosures that may turn out to be fraudulent.

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STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA

IN THE GENERAL COURT OF JUSTICE
SUPERIOR COURT DIVISION

COUNTY OF GUILFORD

GUILFORD COUNTY, ex rel. JEFF L.
THIGPEN, GUILFORD COUNTY
REGISTER OF DEEDS,
Plaintiff,

v.

LENDER PROCESSING SERVICES, INC.;
DOCX, LLC; LPS DEFAULT SOLUTIONS,
INC.; MERSCORP HOLDINGS, INC.;
MORTGAGE ELECTRONIC
REGISTRATION SYSTEMS, INC.; WELLS
FARGO BANK, N.A.; WELLS FARGO
HOME MORTGAGE, INC.; BANK OF
AMERICA, N.A.; JPMORGAN CHASE
BANK, N.A.; CHASE HOME FINANCE
LLC; EMC MORTGAGE CORPORATION;
MIDFIRST BANK; SAND CANYON
CORPORATION; CITI RESIDENTIAL
LENDING, INC.; GREEN TREE
SERVICING, LLC; AMERIQUEST
MORTGAGE COMPANY; USAA
FEDERAL SAVINGS BANK; AMERICAN
HOME MORTGAGE SERVICING, INC.;
MOREQUITY, INC.; U.S. BANK
NATIONAL ASSOCIATION;
EQUICREDIT CORPORATION OF
AMERICA; NATIONSCREDIT
FINANCIAL SERVICES CORP.; ARGENT
MORTGAGE COMPANY, LLC; THE
BANK OF NEW YORK MELLON; THE
BANK OF NEW YORK MELLON TRUST
COMPANY, N.A.; CAPITAL ONE, N.A.;
FIRST FRANKLIN FINANCIAL CORP.;
NAVY FEDERAL CREDIT UNION; and
WEICHERT FINANCIAL SERVICES;
Defendants.

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For Immediate Release: March 13, 2012
Contact: Ginger Cavanaugh (704) 246-3896
ginger@talcottfranklin.com

Guilford County Sues To Clean Up Banks’ “Mess” at the Register of Deeds

Guilford County, ex rel. Jeff L. Thigpen, Guilford County Register of Deeds, filed suit today against LPS/DocX, MERSCORP, MERS, Inc., and numerous banks, loan servicers, and foreclosure specialists seeking to clean up the “mess” Defendants created in the County’s property records registry.

“Our office uncovered an abundance of falsified, forged, and fraudulently executed mortgage documents,” said Thigpen. “But our investigation only found the tip of the iceberg. We need the banks to clean up their mess.”

The suit cites as evidence, Thigpen’s identification of over 6,100 mortgage documents (4,519 of those by DocX) which were filed with the Register of Deeds and signed in the names of known robo-signer aliases: “Linda Green,” “Christie Baldwin,” “Pat Kingston,” “Korell Harp,” “Jessica Ohde,” “Rita Knowles,” “Linda Thoresen,” and “Brent Bagley.”

“How can we maintain accurate records of title with fraudulent documents? The banks are also maintaining their own private registry called ‘MERS’ that prevents the public from discovering who owns what loans. Because there is no accountability for MERS, its records are also a mess,” said Thigpen. “The system is broken and it needs to be fixed. We’re telling MERS and the banks: you broke it, you fix it.”

In an April 6, 2011 letter, Thigpen and Southern Essex (MA) District Registry of Deeds John O’Brien urged Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller to investigate MERS and its impact on Registers of Deeds as part of the national attorneys general robo-signing investigation. The suit cites numerous reasons why MERS fails to keep reliable chains of title, and notes that the recent attorneys general settlement did not address MERS’s and robo-signing’s impact on Registers of Deeds.

“When you combine the fraudulent documents with MERS, it is difficult if not impossible to trace title for property. Potential title defects hurt Guilford County homeowners and businesses by impacting property values,” said Thigpen. “We need to clean up chains of title to ensure certainty in the land records system.”

Under Thigpen, the Guilford County Register of Deeds strives to serve as a model register. The Register of Deeds implemented electronic filing, created an audit software program to improve indexing and correct filing errors, intensified staff training, redacted social security numbers from land records, and significantly upgraded technology.

In 2009, the Register of Deeds received a Local Government Federal Credit Union Productivity Award from the North Carolina Association of County Commissioners for technological innovations.

“It is unbelievably frustrating to expend County resources in an attempt to create an efficient, accurate registry and have these banks wreak havoc on our efforts through fraudulent documents and a secret registry. If we don’t fix this now, the future impact on land records and property values could be severe and incurable.”

“Registries of deeds pre-date the founding of this country and are essential functions of government,” said Guilford County Attorney Mark Payne. “The Guilford County

Register of Deeds has created an outstanding infrastructure, but no registry can work if it is filled with falsified documents.”

The lawsuit, filed by Payne and Deputy County Attorney Matthew Turcola, describes the process by which the Defendants made and sold loans, created and maintained MERS, filed robo-signed documents, and damaged the Register of Deeds and the people of Guilford County. Among other things, the suit seeks the appointment of a special master to oversee an audit of the mortgage documents on file at the Register of Deeds and make necessary corrections.

“While the suit goes into detail on a complex series of transactions, the message is pretty simple,” said Payne. “We’re saying to the banks: ‘You made the mess, you clean it up.’”

Guilford County is located in central North Carolina. Its population is approximately 500,000. Greensboro is the largest city within Guilford County. Guilford County was established in 1771, the same year it began its Registry of Deeds. To assist with the suit, Guilford County retained Talcott Franklin P.C., the nation’s preeminent securitization litigation law firm. Talcott Franklin P.C. has offices in Dallas, Texas and Davidson, North Carolina.
Links:

http://www.restorepublicrecords.com (For copies of the Complaint and associated materials).

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Mortgage Fraud

Lender Processing Services/DocX

Action Date: June 8, 2011
Location: Guilford County, NC

An Open Letter to Jeff Thigpen, Guilford County, NC Register of Deeds and John O’Brien, Southern Essex County, Massachusetts Register of Deeds

Dear Jeff and John,

I want to remind you exactly who you stood up for yesterday. I get emails – hundreds each week – from sick, unemployed, elderly people, young families and veterans who are frightened, too broke to afford a lawyer, and being foreclosed by banks that are using badly forged documents to claim their homes.

This week, judges across the country will grant foreclosures – based on mortgage assignments signed by Linda Green, Korell Harp, Tywanna Thomas and others like them who were following orders from the banks.

A Miami judge said to me “I know who you are – you’re that woman who thinks she can stop a foreclosure because the notary signed her name upside-down.”

The hostility in the courtrooms is really amazing. I expect I will get thrown in jail in Miami some day for contempt for even suggesting a bank committed fraud.

Most days, it is my ragtag, never-say-die colleagues in foreclosure (wonderful people) and some non-bank-owned journalists who are willing to speak the truth about the bank documents used to steal homes.

You two were the first two public officials in the country who were willing to do more than “investigate” – who actually took action.

You will never know how much your act gave me encouragement when I needed it most.

Thank you from me, and on behalf of thousands of people across the country who doubted any public official would ever stand up, speak the truth and take action.

With admiration,

Lynn Szymoniak

HuffPO-

When banks were caught improperly signing off on foreclosure documents last fall, consumer advocates and property rights experts hoped the public outcry would force the companies to change their foreclosure processing systems to ensure that meaningful document reviews were conducted and wrongful foreclosures were prevented.

But in at least one county in North Carolina, banks have responded by exploiting a filing loophole that has allowed them to continue signing off on key documents en masse, according to a local official.

Come back and check these two links below…

MERS Signing Agreements /Corporate Resolutions Signed Using Stamps

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ARE MERS’ SIGNATURES ON DOCUMENTS REAL or SCANNED DUPLICATES?