Flawed Paperwork Aggravates a Foreclosure Crisis
As some of the nation’s largest lenders have conceded that their foreclosure procedures might have been improperly handled, lawsuits have revealed myriad missteps in crucial documents.
The flawed practices that GMAC Mortgage, JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America have recently begun investigating are so prevalent, lawyers and legal experts say, that additional lenders and loan servicers are likely to halt foreclosure proceedings and may have to reconsider past evictions.
Problems emerging in courts across the nation are varied but all involve documents that must be submitted before foreclosures can proceed legally. Homeowners, lawyers and analysts have been citing such problems for the last few years, but it appears to have reached such intensity recently that banks are beginning to re-examine whether all of the foreclosure papers were prepared properly.
In some cases, documents have been signed by employees who say they have not verified crucial information like amounts owed by borrowers. Other problems involve questionable legal notarization of documents, in which, for example, the notarizations predate the actual preparation of documents — suggesting that signatures were never actually reviewed by a notary.
Other problems occurred when notarizations took place so far from where the documents were signed that it was highly unlikely that the notaries witnessed the signings, as the law requires.
On still other important documents, a single official’s name is signed in such radically different ways that some appear to be forgeries. Additional problems have emerged when multiple banks have all argued that they have the right to foreclose on the same property, a result of a murky trail of documentation and ownership.
There is no doubt that the enormous increase in foreclosures in recent years has strained the resources of lenders and their legal representatives, creating challenges that any institution might find overwhelming. According to the Mortgage Bankers Association, the percentage of loans that were delinquent by 90 days or more stood at 9.5 percent in the first quarter of 2010, up from 4 percent in the same period of 2008.
But analysts say that the wave of defaults still does not excuse lenders’ failures to meet their legal obligations before trying to remove defaulting borrowers from their homes.
More here…
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How do we get copies when of these affidavits? Can the mills go back and have them redo the paperwork? They filed and we answered.
This is among the better articles I’ve read. I think Gretchen penned an exceptionally good article here.
Mind you she could have been reading my case file as I presented all of this to my court over two years ago. Going back into the trial court is going to be very interesting.
Front page coverage of banks and their attorneys making up paperwork to take homes, but still no mention of the banks breaking the law by pushing people into ARMs through fraudulent misrepresentations and even by fraudulently switching paperwork at closing. People who were scammed by the banks know the truth, law enforcement and regulators know the truth, and even those who were not victims of the banks’ rampant fraud know that millions of poor people did not take advantage of the banks.
The bankers know that they broke the law, and they know that their illegal conduct is an absolute defense to enforcement of the mortgages that they obtained through their fraudulent conduct. It is time for the assets of the criminal bankers to be seized to cover the damages resutling from their criminal conduct.
It is time to present the evidence to grand juries and start indicting these crooked bank officers and those who helped them steal the homes and life savings of millions of Americans. It is time to put a stop to these scams before it destroys our country.
It is time to vote out any prosecutor who refuses to present evidence of the bankers’ illegal actions to grand juries, and it is time to push for impeachment and indictment of the prosecutors who refuse to take action to stop these crimes and who cannot be voted out of office. It is time to take to the streets before the crooks throw you into the street!