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Hank Investigates: Mortgage Documents

Tonight — an exclusive investigation — if you’ve ever bought or sold a home…you need to hear this. Hank found a signature buried deep in your mortgage documents could be a ticking time bomb for thousands of Massachusetts homeowners. For those in foreclosure: it could be a lifesaver. It’s a shocking, amazing, unbelievable story. Hank Investigates.

This Nantucket home is Bob Jepson’s most treasured possession. He built it himself and cared for it for 40 years. When hard times hit–he almost lost it in foreclosure.

But for now–Bob gets to keep it.

Bob Jepson, Homeowner

“It’s fabulous, it’s like someone just giving me a million dollars, it’s like hitting the lottery, it’s like I can regain my old life.

Marie’s home in Rhode Island was also in foreclosure–but now the bank’s agreed not to kick her out.

Marie Medeiros, Homeowner

“I don’t have to uproot my kids. That’s, that’s a blessing.”

What Marie calls a blessing is really a signature – this signature that reads Linda Green.

We found those two words are saving some people from foreclosure but putting other homeowners at risk.

There’s a Linda Green signature on one of Bob’s mortgage documents and on one of Marie’s and on all these documents from mortgages on other people’s homes.

You can see they’re all the same name – but they’re not written by the same person.

Hank

“So what does that mean?”

John O’Brien, Register, Southern Essex District Registry of Deeds

“It means as far as I’m concerned, they’re fraudulent documents.”

Hank

“So every single document that has this signature is fraudulent?”

John O’Brien, Register, Southern Essex District Registry of Deeds

“I don’t think they’re legit!”