Lawsky: Exam Finds Indications that Problems Remain at Ocwen
Please encourage people to file complaints. This regulator seems to want to hear about it! http://www.dfs.ny.gov/consumer/fileacomplaint.htm
CUOMO ADMINISTRATION REQUIRES MAJOR MORTGAGE SERVICER TO INSTALL MONITOR TO ENSURE PROMISED REFORMS ARE IMPLEMENTED
Exam Finds Indications that Problems Remain at Ocwen
Superintendent Benjamin M. Lawsky today announced that the Department of Financial Services is requiring Ocwen Financial Corporation to hire a monitor to ensure that the company complies with an agreement to reform its mortgage servicing practices. The action was taken after an examination by the Department found indications of Ocwen violating the agreement. The monitor will be in place for two years.
Ocwen is one of the largest mortgage servicers and has been growing rapidly, servicing more than 764,000 residential mortgages nationally as of August. In New York, the company services more than 40,000 residential home loan accounts held largely by distressed homeowners. “It is not enough to have banks and mortgage servicers sign agreements promising to reform their businesses. The best unrealized reforms won’t protect homeowners. To protect homeowners facing the risk of losing their homes, we must ensure that the companies are actually living up to their promises,” Superintendent Lawsky said. “Following complaints about Ocwen’s servicing practices, we conducted a targeted exam of Ocwen’s performance and discovered gaps in the company’s compliance. The Department is requiring the company to hire a monitor so that we can be sure that the reforms are implemented and homeowners have a real chance to avoid foreclosure.” In September 2011, Ocwen was the first mortgage servicer to agree to the Department’s landmark new Mortgage Servicing Practices designed to correct robo-signing and other troubling foreclosure and servicing practices that were depriving homeowners of the opportunity to avoid foreclosure.
The Department’s examination of Ocwen’s mortgage servicing practices found that, in some instances, the company failed to demonstrate that it had sent out required 90-day notices before commencing foreclosure proceedings or even that it had standing to do bring the foreclosure actions. The exam also revealed gaps in Ocwen’s Servicing Practices, including indications that in some instances it failed to provide the single point of contact for borrowers; pursued foreclosure against borrowers seeking a loan modification; failed to conduct an independent review of denials of loan modifications; and failed to ensure that borrower and loan information was accurate and up-to-date.
Under the new Consent Order, Ocwen has 20 days to find an independent monitor acceptable to the Department. The monitor will review Ocwen’s operations and identify and report on corrective actions within 90 days.
Ocwen, one of the biggest mortgage servicers, is expanding. In the past two years, Ocwen has acquired several major servicers’ portfolios of distressed home loans, including Litton Loan Servicing LP in 2011, Saxon Mortgage Services, Inc. and EMC Mortgage Corporation in 2012 and has announced plans to further expand its servicing operations through the acquisition of additional mortgage servicing rights, including from Homeward Residential, Inc., formerly known as American Home Mortgage Servicing, Inc. (“AHMSI”). Ocwen just won an auction to acquire Residential Capital, LLC (“ResCAP”).
The Department’s Mortgage Servicing Practices are designed to redress troublesome and unlawful practices that have plagued the mortgage servicing industry as a whole. Those practices include:
· “Robo-signing,” where servicer staff signed affidavits stating they reviewed loan documents when they had not actually done so.
· Weak internal controls and oversight that compromise the accuracy of foreclosure documents.
· Referring borrowers to foreclosure at the same time as those borrowers are attempting to obtain modifications of their mortgages or other loss mitigation.
· Improper denials of loan modifications.
· Failing to provide borrowers with access to a single customer service representative, resulting in delays or failure of the loss mitigation process.
· Imposition of improper fees by servicers.
The Practices, which have been agreed to by eight mortgage servicers, require the following changes:
1. End robo-signing and impose staffing and training requirements that will prevent robo-signing.
2. Require servicers to withdraw any pending foreclosure actions in which filed affidavits were robo-signed or otherwise not accurate.
3. End “dual tracking”, i.e., referring a borrower to foreclosure while the borrower is pursuing loan modification or loss mitigation, and prohibit foreclosures from advancing while denial of a borrower’s loan modification is under an independent review, which is also required by the agreements.
4. Provide a dedicated single point of contact representative for all borrowers seeking loss mitigation or in foreclosure so borrowers are able to speak to the same person who knows their file every time they call.
5. Require servicers to ensure that any force-placed insurance be reasonably priced in relation to claims incurred, and prohibit force-placing insurance with an affiliated insurer.
6. Impose more rigorous pleading requirements in foreclosure actions to ensure that only parties and entities possessing the legal right to foreclose can sue borrowers.
7. For borrowers found to have been wrongfully foreclosed, require servicers to ensure that their equity in the property is returned, or, if the property was sold, compensate the borrower.
8. Impose new standards on servicers for application of borrowers’ mortgage payments to prevent layering of late fees and other servicer fees and use of suspense accounts in ways that compounded borrower delinquencies and defaults.
9. Require servicers to strengthen oversight of foreclosure counsel and other third party vendors, and impose new obligations on servicers to conduct regular reviews of foreclosure documents prepared by counsel and to terminate foreclosure attorneys whose document practices are problematic or who are sanctioned by a court.
SOURCE: http://www.dfs.ny.gov/about/press/pr1212051.htm
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I have a severe fraud problem with OCWEN and GMAC and Nationstar. All three forged the documents from the settlement to the foreclosure, even after I rescinded the same day on the closing without completing the signing. The documents were switched from the closing day of 8/2/2007 to 8/9/2007 when it arrived at the recorders office. I have the original copies with a certification as true and correct but the copies at the Deeds office does not have any certifications, affidavits, Notary stamps, witnesses, or any dates, and the name of the borrower is not on the front page #1 or the right city on the mortgage, and the wrong loan number which I have three that I know of that can come back in court claiming I owe the same debt again and again because the Courts are so corrupt they would not allow any of my discoveries or objections to the fraud that is obvious to a lay person, I am an 8th grade dropout and found at least 20 document forgeries in the documents. This whole banking system has to be torn out by the roots to stop these criminals who are allowed to keep on stealing homes and peoples lives. Now they were awarded the judgement with no affidavits or allonges to prove standing. And this is 2015, and the robosigning still is going strong, the affidavit from Nationstar is not sound as the one swearing his statement is not stated as working for Nationstar and has assistant secretary as his employer with a Nationstar notary signing with them. The transfer stamp on the note from GMAC was signed by a car sales manager in an Alabama GMAC dealer. J. Grey. How can a Salesman in another state other then Texas swear to a mortgage and note they never even saw? How are all these moron courts staying on the bench with such fraud they are allowing in the courts? They have an excuse that yeah the system has some problems but it’s the best we got? My dog can bark a better answer then that. We need 100% reform in the system and all the Judges who have been a party to these criminals actions should go to jail along with the criminals.