THIS IS ABSOLUTELY BOGUS!
Brought to you first by 4closureFraud, Foreclosure Hamlet, Lynn Szymoniak, and DinSFLA…
Now The Wall Street Journal!
By AMIR EFRATI and CARRICK MOLLENKAMP
Lender Processing Services Unit Draws Inquiry Over the Steps That Led to Faulty Bank Paperwork
A subsidiary of a company that is a top provider of the documentation used by banks in the foreclosure process is under investigation by federal prosecutors.
The prosecutors are “reviewing the business processes” of the subsidiary of Lender Processing Services Inc., based in Jacksonville, Fla., according to the company’s annual securities filing released in February. People familiar with the matter say the probe is criminal in nature.
Michelle Kersch, an LPS spokeswoman, said the subsidiary being investigated is Docx LLC. Docx processes and sometimes produces documents needed by banks to prove they own the mortgages. LPS’s annual report said that the processes under review have been “terminated,” and that the company has expressed its willingness to cooperate. Ms. Kersch declined to comment further on the probe.
A spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office for the middle district of Florida, which the annual report says is handling the matter, declined to comment.
The case follows on the dismissal of numerous foreclosure cases in which judges across the U.S. have found that the materials banks had submitted to support their claims were wrong. Faulty bank paperwork has been an issue in foreclosure proceedings since the housing crisis took hold a few years ago. It is often difficult to pin down who the real owner of a mortgage is, thanks to the complexity of the mortgage market.
During the housing boom, mortgages were originated by lenders, quickly sold to Wall Street firms that bundled them into debt pools and then sold to investors as securities. The loans were supposed to change hands but the documents and contracts between borrowers and lenders often weren’t altered to show changes in ownership, judges have ruled.
Related Documents
- U.S. trustee’s statement in support of sanctions against Chase
- Scott Walter’s Mortgage Assignment Signed by LPS Employee
Documents processed by LPS that said an entity called “Bogus Assignee” owned the mortgage:
That has made it hard for banks, which act on behalf of mortgage-securities investors in most foreclosure cases, to prove they own the loans in some instances.
LPS has said its software is used by banks to track the majority of U.S. residential mortgages from the time they are originated until the debt is satisfied or a borrower defaults. When a borrower defaults and a bank needs to foreclose, LPS helps process paperwork the bank uses in court.
LPS was recently referenced in a bankruptcy case involving Sylvia Nuer, a Bronx, N.Y., homeowner who had filed for protection from creditors in 2008.
Diana Adams, a U.S. government lawyer who monitors bankruptcy courts, argued in a brief filed earlier this year in the Nuer case that an LPS employee signed a document that wrongly said J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. had owned Ms. Nuer’s loan.
Documents related to the loan were “patently false or misleading,” according to Ms. Adams’s court papers. J.P. Morgan Chase, which has withdrawn its request to foreclose, declined to comment.
Linda Tirelli, a lawyer for Ms. Nuer, declined to comment directly on the case.
Ms. Kersch said LPS didn’t actually create the document and that the company’s “sole connection to this case is that our technology and services were utilized by J.P. Morgan Chase and its counsel.”
While the majority of foreclosures go unchallenged, some homeowners have won the right to keep their homes by proving the bank couldn’t show, on paper, that it owned the mortgage.
Some lawyers representing homeowners have claimed that banks routinely file erroneous paperwork showing they have a right to foreclose when they don’t.
Firms that process the paperwork are either “producing so many documents per day that nobody is reviewing anything, even to make sure they have the names right, or you’ve got some massive software problem,” said O. Max Gardner, a consumer-bankruptcy attorney in Shelby N.C., who has defended clients against foreclosure actions.
The wave of foreclosures and housing crisis appears to have helped LPS. According to the annual securities filing, foreclosure-related revenue was $1.1 billion last year compared with $473 million in 2007.
LPS has acknowledged problems in its paperwork. In its annual securities filing, in which it disclosed the federal probe, the company said it had found “an error” in how Docx handled notarization of some documents. Docx also has processed documents used in courts that incorrectly claimed an entity called “Bogus Assignee” was the owner of the loan, according to documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
Ms. Kersch said the “bogus” phrase was used as a placeholder. “Unfortunately, on a few occasions, the document was inadvertently recorded before the field was updated,” she said.
Write to Amir Efrati at amir.efrati@wsj.com and Carrick Mollenkamp at carrick.mollenkamp@wsj.com
Well, the truth is finally coming out. If I had done this to some one I would be in Jail, however these companies are left alive and still keep producing “creating” the illusion of legality. What is really sad is that most people have no idea that their loans are non compliant and that they are victims of fraud. By the time the hammer comes down their fighting spirit is broken. Can you imagine what is going on in Arizona, Virginia, DC, California, etc., jurisdictions in which the criminal element foreclosure mills send you two or three letters and you have no way od defending yourself. Their offices will not even pick up the phone.
and when you go to court your claims are not even heard and your lawyer is sanctioned for being a vexatious litigator.
It is up to us to bring the truth out.
[…] WSJ Picks Up on Bogus – U.S. Probes Foreclosure-Data Provider Lender Processing Services Docx […]
[…] WSJ Picks Up on Bogus – U.S. Probes Foreclosure-Data Provider Lender Processing Services Docx […]
[…] light of the new reports from the Wall Street Journal and the Jacksonville Business Journel, I thought this would be an appropriate […]
It is too bad the original article from the WSJ didn’t talk about all the forgeries coming out of this company.If you take ten random assignments, you can end up with ten variations of each signature on the documents.
Just take a look at the Palm Beach Assignment and compare it to the Wayne County Assignment that was included in the original article from the WSJ.
Linda Green’s signature does not match. What a Surprise…
This is just the tip of the iceberg.
The lies need to stop.
4closureFraud
“Unfortunately, on a few occasions, the document was inadvertently recorded before the field was updated,”
Translation: “Unfortunately, our document-fabrication machine eructated out the truth a few times.”
ForeclosureHamlet.org
GOD IS GREAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!JUSTICE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!