Wells Fargo Sues Wells Fargo?
Fox News Interviews Al Lewis of Dow Jones about it…
You can’t expect a bank that is dumb enough to sue itself to know why it is suing itself.
Yet I could not resist asking Wells Fargo Bank NA why it filed a civil complaint against itself in a mortgage foreclosure case in Hillsborough County, Fla.
“Due to state foreclosure laws, lenders are obligated to name and notify subordinate lien holders,” said Wells Fargo spokesman Kevin Waetke.
Being a taxpayer-subsidized, too-big-to-fail institution, it’s possible that one of the few ways for Wells Fargo & Co. (WFC) to know what it is doing is to notify itself with a court filing.
In this particular case, Wells Fargo holds the first and second mortgages on a condominium, according to Sarasota, Fla., attorney Dan McKillop, who represents the condo owner.
As holder of the first, Wells Fargo is suing all other lien holders, including the holder of the second, which is itself.
“The primary reason is to clear title and ownership interest in a property to prepare it for sale,” Waetke said in an email exchange. “So it really is not Wells Fargo vs. Wells Fargo.”
Yet court documents clearly label “Wells Fargo Bank NA” as the plaintiff and “Wells Fargo Bank NA” as a defendant.
Wells Fargo hired the infamous Florida Default Law Group., P.L., of Tampa, Fla., to file the lawsuit against itself.
And then Wells Fargo hired another Tampa law firm — Kass, Shuler, Solomon, Spector, Foyle & Singer P.A. — to defend itself against its own lawsuit, according to court documents.
Wells Fargo’s defense lawyers even filed an answer to their client’s own complaint.
“Defendant admits that it is the owner and holder of a mortgage encumbering the subject real property,” the answer reads. “All other allegations of the complaint are denied.”
This is even dumber than the lending practices that led to this foreclosure mess, yet this is what the court record says.
McKillop, the condo owner’s attorney, said he thinks Wells Fargo doesn’t know what it’s doing, and that its lawyers figure it is all billable hours to them.
“You can’t sue yourself,” McKillop said. “It’s just so ridiculous. .. It’s a waste of paper. It’s a bastardization of the legal process.”
The condo owner is belly up and hired McKillop to pursue a “friendly foreclosure,” attempting to escape any lingering liabilities after the foreclosure sale.
“It was a property they thought they were buying as a good investment as a lot of people did back in 2005 and 2006,” McKillop said. “All we want to do now is get this property taken care of as fast and as easily as possible for all parties.”
Rather than suing itself — a stunt that was never even attempted on the MTV show “Jackass” — wouldn’t it be easier for Wells Fargo to release one of the liens to itself? Or pursue some other internal accounting strategy rather than tie up the court with nonsense?
“This is just folks cranking out paperwork without conscious thought,” said Anthony Sabino, a law professor at St. John’s School of Law in New York City.
Sabino added that it is possibly more confirmation of the old saw that a lawyer is one who can speak from both sides of the mouth.
Still trying to comprehend this legal lunacy, the Florida Bar said they have seen several cases where a large bank has sued itself for foreclosure as the holder of both first and second mortgages.
“Four or five years ago, you would have never seen this, Now, it’s very common.
In the final years of the housing boom, banks were lending to homeowners with no money down. To do this, they often made 80/20 loans, giving homeowners an 80% first mortgage and a 20% second mortgage.
Now, it seems these moronic mortgages require moronic foreclosures.
Perhaps this strategy may speed up a summary judgment. Or maybe it preserves the position of the second lien holder so it is next in line to collect surplus funds after the first lien is satisfied.
But fat chance of surplus proceeds in the Florida foreclosure market these days.
It takes some pretty shameless lawyers and a rich culture of corporate stupidity for a company to sue itself. I hope Wells Fargo loses this case and ends up having to drag itself all the way to the Supreme Court.
HA!
4closureFraud
https://4closurefraud.org/
Any idea how the case settled?
Wells fargo has had such a rough time out there in the courts, this may be a way for them to establish some caselaw in their favor? This way they could sight to their own case as a victory in other foreclosures they file. Heck we could all pull this same stunt if you think about it for just about anything.
This video kind of annoys me.
The BIGGEST American fraud of all time is put up there on the screen in Wells Fargo’s comment that they aren’t the real parties, they just represent the real parties! Then both the newscaster & the man being interviewed BOTH say “HA HA, I don’t know what that means….but….let’s move on to the funny issue of a bank that sues itself.”
Yeah…………HA HA.
I really would love to look at the complaint that was filed in this specific case because I strongly suspect that Wells Fargo intimates that they ARE the party of interest and that they have the right to foreclose!
Absurd!
I have wondered about this lunacy since I’ve been looking at the case files. I found it immensely perplexing! Why sue oneself? And to have to pay two attorneys, one to initiate the action and one to defend against it?
I guess this is why I’m just a little person in the trenches and not some high falutin’ banker type?
Lisa E.