Signatures on documents used in foreclosure cases under review
The Sun News-
Anthony Wise has been selling real estate in the Myrtle Beach area for nearly three decades, but he had never heard of Linda Green until after his home went into foreclosure.
Now, just like hundreds of thousands of people nationwide, Wise is finding that the biggest investment he will ever make – his home – is closely tied to Green … or someone pretending to be her.
Green was a shipping clerk for an automobile parts company before taking a job in the signature room at a mortgage document company called DocX in Alpharetta, Ga., according to news reports.
[…]
Richard Lovelace, a Conway lawyer who specializes in real estate and banking law, said the banks who used DocX – or similar document mills – have put themselves at risk if homeowners can prove the paperwork is fraudulent.
That is true even if a home has already been lost to foreclosure.
In all mortgage foreclosure actions pending on May 9,2011, before any merits hearing in the case, or if an order of foreclosure has been entered, before any foreclosure sale, the Mortgagee shall, through its attorney of record, file with the court and serve upon every Mortgagor a notice of the Mortgagots right to foreclosure intervention. All proceedings in the foreclosure action shall be stayed until completion of such foreclosure intervention.
No foreclosure hearing or foreclosure sale may be held in the foreclosure action until the Mortgagee’s attorney certifies the following:
Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt is seeking an alternative settlement with banks that respects “the appropriate role of attorneys general,” his office said in a statement today. The settlement could be a model for other states, Pruitt said.
Georgia Attorney General Sam Olens said he has “significant concerns” about a proposal to reduce loan balances for some homeowners as part of a settlement of a nationwide foreclosure probe, joining at least seven other states that have criticized such a plan.
A deal with the top mortgage servicers in the U.S. that includes writedowns could encourage homeowners who are current on their loans to stop making payments, Olens, a Republican, said today in a telephone interview.
“You’re declaring in advance who the winners and losers are,” Olens said. “I’m a little concerned that this process disengages the normal market forces.”
(Updates with excerpt from letter in fourth paragraph.)
March 22 (Bloomberg) — Four more Republican state attorneys general are opposing a plan to resolve a nationwide probe of foreclosure and mortgage-servicing practices because the terms may foster a “moral hazard.”
In a letter today to Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller, a Democrat who has taken the lead in the investigation, the officials objected to new documentation requirements and principal reductions outlined in the proposed settlement submitted to the country’s top mortgage-servicing companies this month.
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.
CONTINUE READING…..YAHOO
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