Broward homeowner alleges robo-signer wrongdoing in foreclosure case
December 11, 2010|By Paul Owers, Sun Sentinel
Long before the furor over foreclosures exploded nationwide, Gerta Kachko figured something was amiss.
The computer programmer from New Jersey lost her job in 2008, nearly three years after she had taken out a $350,400 mortgage on a second home, a waterfront condominium in Hollywood.
When Kachko missed several months of payments, Deutsche Bank filed for foreclosure, but she didn’t understand why Deutsche was involved. The lender that gave her the note was American Home Mortgage Servicing Inc.
“We never heard of them before,” said Kachko’s son, Eugene, 33.
With that, the Kachkos launched a legal battle to fight the foreclosure, an odyssey that would include a quick judgment for the bank and alleged wrongdoing by so-called robo-signers.
After employees of mortgage-servicing companies nationwide admitted to signing thousands of foreclosure affidavits without reviewing them, several big lenders this fall suspended foreclosures while they investigated possible paperwork errors in the filing process.
Homeowners and their lawyers say overwhelmed lenders and judges are rubber-stamping foreclosures, overlooking major problems and compromising the defendants’ rights to due process.
So…
Eugene Kachko hired an expert on mortgages and foreclosures to review his mother’s case.
The expert, West Palm Beach attorney Lynn Szymoniak, wrote in an affidavit that “it is clear” that Deutsche had not acquired the Kachko mortgage at the time it moved to foreclose.
Szymoniak testified that Deutsche filed a document proving that it owned the Kachko mortgage only after filing the initial foreclosure, and it attempted to make the document effective retroactively.
The document was signed by Linda Green and Linda Thoresen, who were identified as representatives of America Home Mortgage.
But Szymoniak said Green and Thoresen actually were employees of Lender Processing Services Inc., a Jacksonville-based company whose services include drafting missing documents to facilitate foreclosures.
Green and Thoresen “signed thousands of documents each week as needed in foreclosure cases, without any personal knowledge of the documents, often without any authority from the entities they claimed to be their employers and, in most cases, without ever reading such documents,” Szymoniak wrote.She also noted that LPS told federal regulators in August that its document production operations were the subject of state and federal investigations. A spokewoman for LPS did not respond to an interview request.
On Aug. 20, Sherman filed a motion for a rehearing, asking that the judge’s ruling for Deutsche be vacated on the grounds that the bank allegedly committed fraud.
Judge Eli Breger granted the order on Sept. 24, canceling the Kachko foreclosure. Four days earlier, GMAC Mortgage had become the first lender to suspend foreclosures.
You can check out the full report here…
Thanks for covering this Paul…
Excellent job Lynn!
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http://www.change.org/petitions/view/request_for_congressional_foreclosure_panel_to_examine_foreclosure_lawyers#
LAWYERS WHO FILE FORECLOSURES SHOULD ALSO BE INVESTIGATED
Foreclosure lawyers are officers of the court; knowledge of applicable laws and civil procedure is not required from mortgage lenders, nor loan servicers. Inadequate or questionable foreclosure leads to useless property deeds that impede real estate sales; title insurance companies reluctant to cover foreclosed properties; mortgage default claims are being disputed due to defective foreclosures. . .Sample of fraudulent foreclosures:
–Deliberately use of defunct lenders or lenders without “standing” to execute false civil and bankruptcy foreclosure proceedings.
– Create and conceal malpractice, delay foreclosures, engineer billable litigation fees.
– Orchestrate sham foreclosure auctions; property never acquired by lenders, but by ‘straw buyers’
– Commit actionable wrongs (unfair debt collection, fraud, various torts) that give rise to lawsuits
– Engage in self-dealing foreclosures by which some lawyers themselves gain foreclosed properties
–Foreclosures via names of defunct lenders, illegally recorded property deeds, flipping, blighted communities
– Unconscionably create false deficiency judgments against property owners after straw buyers acquire homes for pennies on the dollar
– Intentionally false Bankruptcy court “Motion to Lift” and “Proof of Claim” on behalf of NON-EXISTENT lenders, concealing fact of “non-secured” mortgage debt.
–Involved in fraudulent collection of property damage and mortgage insurance for illegally foreclosed homes
–Fraudulent foreclosures abet loss of property taxes to city revenue, rodents, vagrants
– Thousands of families made unlawfully homeless from null foreclosure proceedings.
**more: Request for Congressional Foreclosure Panel to Examine Foreclosure Lawyers
http://www.change.org/petitions/view/request_for_congressional_foreclosure_panel_to_examine_foreclosure_lawyers#
Seems like Deutsche is one of the primary culprits in foreclosing without correct documents. It also seems that they must let anyone that works for a servicer or attorneys office – whether it is an attorney or not sign documents on their behalf.
There are a variety of class actions starting out there in individual states against Deutsche, Chase, LPS and others.
Is there a national class action as it appears that all of these companies deal in all states. It certainly seems like Deutsche, even though it is a German bank, must own half of the USA homes in some fashion. It looks like they are like ambulance chasers. They buy some mortgages hoping they fail, but don’t want title to it until they do.
Some are adding RICO violations to the lawsuits. That sounds like the way to go since it is so pervasive and ongoing. There are also nice treble damages attached to RICO.
Hopefully an attorney will see the value in taking this nationally.
Yea!!!!!! Good job Lynn! Let’s keep it up!