Commonwealth of Massachusetts

 Southern Essex District Registry of Deeds
Shetland Park
45 Congress Street
Suite 4100
Salem, Massachusetts 01970

JOHN L. O’BRIEN, JR.
Register of Deeds
Phone: 978-542-1704
Fax: 978-542-1706
website: www.salemdeeds.com

NEWS
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Salem, MA

November 15^th,, 2011

Contact: Kevin Harvey 1^st Assistant Register
978-542-1724
kevin.harvey@sec.state.ma.us

Southern Essex District Register of Deeds John O’Brien said today that someone has to take the bull by the horns and stand up for homeowners, who through no fault of their own, have had their chain of title clouded by the actions of the Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems (“MERS”) and its major shareholder banks, such as Bank of America, J.P. Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo and others.

He is offering to provide homeowners in his district, who have a robo or surrogate signed document in their chain of title, an affidavit signed by him attesting to the fact that such a document exists in their title and that is recorded at his Registry. O’Brien estimates that there are over 36,000 homeowners in his district alone and suggests Southern Essex County Homeowner’s visit his website at, www.salemdeeds.com , where they can search to see if they have been a victim of  this scheme, in what O’Brien calls  “the largest scandal to affect the integrity of the land recordation system in this country since its inception.”  O’Brien went on to say that “the affidavit will allow homeowners to reach out to their banks and ask them what they are going to do to repair their clouded chain of title and if the homeowner is being foreclosed upon, they can use this affidavit as proof that a document being used to take their home contains a fraudulent robo or surrogate signed document.”

O’Brien, who has been leading the national effort to hold banks accountable for their failure to pay recording fees and their deliberate attempt to record fraudulent documents in registries across the country, said he is hopeful that the Commonwealth of Massachusetts will be filing suit shortly to recoup the lost revenue that he estimates to be $250 million dollars.  “Since I have raised these issues, other states and counties have filed suits to recover their lost revenue and I feel that Massachusetts needs to pursue this, sooner rather then later.”

In addition, O’Brien said he cannot understand why his Registry funds are still being deposited into Bank of America, even though he requested that they be moved last April and placed in a non-MERS member bank.  “Since that time, my Registry has deposited over $15 million dollars in a bank that has snubbed its nose at property rights.” O’Brien said that the Elected Registers of Deeds have always had the authority to choose the institution in which to deposit their Registry’s revenue.  In fact, he has moved his Registry’s funds 6 times during his tenure as the elected Register of Deeds for the Southern Essex District.   “I am curious why at this time my efforts are being blocked. My constituents are not pleased that Bank of America continues to profit off registry funds and they want to know why these funds have not been moved.  They deserve an answer and so do I” O’Brien commented.  For well over 200 years, Registers of Deeds have had a “fiduciary chain of title” when it comes to registry revenue.  Registers are responsible for these funds from the original acceptance of the fee, the deposit of the monies, and the transfer of those funds to the Commonwealth. “In my opinion, as Registries across the state have become crime scenes infected with thousands of fraudulent documents and the MERS banks failure to pay the same fees as everyone else, I would hope that all funds in every Registry of Deeds in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts currently being deposited in Bank of America be removed immediately.”  O’Brien feels strongly that “We need to send these banks a message that we intend to hold them accountable for their actions and that fraudulent documents are not acceptable in The Commonwealth of Massachusetts land recordation system.”

MERS, LPS, MERS, LPS everywhere is MERS or LPS…

This involves Tywanna Thomas, who we all know worked for Lender Processing Services’ DocX. We learned a lot from the deposition of Cheryl Denise Thomas aka Tywanna’s Mother who also worked with her.

My San Antonio-

Ezequiel Martinez, a San Antonio real estate investor who helps homeowners avoid foreclosure, recently found himself in the same predicament as his clients.

Rather than simply fight to stop the foreclosure on his Live Oak investment home, Martinez filed suit against his lender, saying the mortgage should be voided because of phony loan documents and because he doesn’t think the bank can prove it owns the mortgage note.

If Martinez wins the case, he just might be done making mortgage payments on the house at 7502 Forest Fern.

“We’re not trying to get a free house,” he explained. “We’re trying to save the house from foreclosure fraud.”

American Home Mortgage

Servicing Inc.

v.

Lender Processing Services

Inc., DOCX, L.L.C

[ipaper docId=63851479 access_key=key-19uowkk1cinmvgl4xmqi height=600 width=600 /]

Abigail C. Field-

The American Home Servicing lawsuit against consummate and prolific robosigner Lender Processing Services is a pretty good read, but if you don’t have the time, I’ve highlighted the best nuggets.

Page 1: American Home Servicing Inc. says that over 30,000 assignments of mortgage in Texas and across America are fraudulent—“improperly executed, notarized and recorded”.

Page 2: American Home renames robosigners “Special Officers” to suggest the robosigners were legitimately signing the assignments of mortgages.

…

[REALITY CHECK]

Via NAKED CAPITALISM-

Wow, Jones Day just created a huge mess for its client and banks generally if anyone is alert enough to act on it.

The lawsuit in question is American Home Mortgage Servicing Inc. v Lender Processing Services. It hasn’t gotten all that much attention (unless you are on the LPS deathwatch beat) because to most, it looks like yet another beauty contest between Cinderella’s two ugly sisters.

[NAKED CAPITALISM]

.

Looks to me like the year was changed from 2009 to 2008 below…VERY SUSPICIOUS!

[ipaper docId=113924002 access_key=key-bo4zjmcs0z1kverjrx2 height=600 width=600 /]

UPDATE 9/25:

PETITION | American Home Mortgage Servicing Inc. Vs. Lender Processing Services Inc., DOCX “Bombshell Admission of Failed Securitization Process”

`

Rumor has it for a bit now that all things robo-signing would see an end shortly after “Labor Day”, so now what happens to those who were unlawfully foreclosed upon? How do you justify that AHMSI knew of this for over a year to come to an unsuccessful agreement to settle with LPS?

HousingWire-

Lender Processing Services Inc. (LPS: 17.07 -2.29%) and its DocX affiliate caused American Home Mortgage Servicing Inc. to lose millions from the robo-signing of mortgage documents, a lawsuit filed Tuesday contends.

Coppell, Texas-based AHMSI filed suit in a Dallas district court against Jacksonville, Fla.-based LPS alleging more than 30,000 residential mortgages across the country were affected by  “improper execution, notarization and recording of assignments of mortgage.”

[HOUSING WIRE]

From the Palm Beach Post Christine Stapleton [link]

At Lender Processing Services workers who signed tens of thousands of sworn foreclosure affidavits with someone else’ name were called “surrogate signers”, according to Cheryl Denise Thomas, a former LPS worker who admitted to notarizing as many as 1,000 sworn affidavits daily – often without witnessing the signature.

Thomas said despite “raised eyebrows”  her supervisors never used the word “forge” and repeatedly told workers the practice of signing someone else’ name on a sworn affidavit was legal. Thomas detailed the company’s foreclosure document processing practices during a deposition in an Orange county foreclosure case on March 23.

[ipaper docId=51885547 access_key=key-2omhtmjy5z5l5nazqt36 height=600 width=600 /]

[image credit: I-Robot]

via: NakedCapitalism

Excerpts:

Beginning Pg. 33

that’s when they — well, upon us leaving
anyway, they took up our notary stamps and
everything and destroyed them. But I was
relieved of my duties once moved to
Gwinnett County.

Q. Who — who — I’m sorry, did I miss
that? Who destroyed those documents?

A. I can’t say exactly who destroyed
them. All I know is that Jeffrey
the supervisor in the signing room at that
times, he picked up everyone’s stamp, the
notaries’ stamps.

Q. He took your stamps?

A. He took our stamps. And — and
they were destroying them.

Q. How were they destroying them?

A. I don’t know how. He just said
they were picking up all the stamps, all
of the notary stamps. And they were going
to destroy them, because the company was
closing. And they were only suppose to be
used for that company.

Continue below…

[ipaper docId=51885547 access_key=key-2omhtmjy5z5l5nazqt36 height=600 width=600 /]