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Suits Over Foreclosure 'Robo-Signing' Piling Up
The Legal Intelligencer ^ | 11-12-2010 | Sheri Qualters

Posted on 11/12/2010 6:04:54 AM PST by em2vn

The expected litigation frenzy against mortgage lenders that used "robo-signing" tactics — mass signing and approval of foreclosure documents without verification — has launched, with class actions in Florida and Maine and a lawsuit by Ohio's attorney general filed this month, all against GMAC Mortgage.

Other purported class actions involving robo-signing have been filed in federal courts in Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland and New Jersey in recent weeks. Lawyers expect many more to follow

(Excerpt) Read more at law.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy
KEYWORDS: foreclosure; robo; signing
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To: qwertypie
Where are the supposed mobs of people being screwed by paying the wrong mortgage holder?

The article is about lawsuits piling up. I think you found your mob.

41 posted on 11/12/2010 5:30:57 PM PST by servantoftheservant
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To: qwertypie

“There IS a problem here: the FReeper equivalent of truthers making cr@p up in their pinheads.”

The problem is the Freepers who think the rule of law is a load of cr@P. And that scares me more than crook politico or con-men bankers.


42 posted on 11/12/2010 6:58:07 PM PST by Kartographer (".. we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.")
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To: qwertypie

Using an example of what “...American investors trust...” is a counter-productive example for you. On the whole, in the last 10+ years, American investors have had the collective IQ of crack-fueled howler monkeys who thought they could fly.

Sadly, monkeys have not invented jetpacks. Or wings. Neither have American investors even rented a few solid clues in the last 10 years.

Examples:

American investors trusted auction rate securities were “the same as cash.” Until they discovered that, no, in fact, they were not.

American investors thought that the “sub-prime mortgage market was contained.” Whoops, no it wasn’t.

American investors (and indeed, the Federal Reserve) thought that banks wouldn’t do anything deliberately self-destructive. Whoops. Bad assumption there.

“Professional” investors thought that credit default swaps would protect them against the default of a counterparty. Well, until they stopped to ponder whether or not the party writing the CDS contract had even a remote chance of actually, you know, paying off on the CDS contracts they had written.

When I started gently telling people here on FR to expect residential price declines in the 20% range in 2007, there were people shouting at me what a goddamn fool I was.

Well, I was wrong, so mea culpa. I apologize for predicting only a 20% decline. So I guess I was at fault as well.

On the whole, using what “American investors” believe as a yardstick of what passes for competence has been proven again and again and again over the last 10+ years to be foolhardy. Look at the number of wealthy people, hedge funds and aggregator funds that believes Bernie Madoff’s investment strategy was viable. $55+ billion gone. That’s a whole lot of incompetence right there. Look at the SEC, who was handed the evidence on Madoff no less than five times. There’s nothing in my experience in the last 10 years that tells me to use American investors as a benchmark for anything remotely resembling a bright idea.

The county-level real property recording system we have in the US is old, but it is trustworthy, if for no other reason than the 3,000+ counties in the US limit how widespread any corruption or incompetence can permeate the overall system. When we start concentrating information and assets into one big bag, failures inevitably become big enough to cause national or international consequences. MERS, by holding so many of the notes/mortgages in the US, now has the ability to compromise a huge swath of property titling as well as the ability of note-holders to foreclose.

A system devised by bankers is plainly not trustworthy, in large part because the bankers think about profits first, property rights last. The reason why this mess is coming to light is because they’re having to foreclose. If the foreclosure rate were still were it was in 2005 (eg), well below 1% overall, then we wouldn’t be hearing a peep about MERS. No one, whether plaintiff’s lawyer or law professor or investment analyst, would be examining the guts and entrails of MERS.

As it is, the system has shown that it is utterly incompetently designed, without regard for the variances in state laws on property recording, without regard for how to deliver a quiet title in a foreclosure action, etc. What the MERS system allowed bankers to do is assign a note very quickly. It does this very well, because that’s all bankers are really fixated upon: the money side of the issue.

I’ve been in county offices in rural Nevada and I’ve been able to trace titles on really old ranches back to land grants from the King of Spain, with a Spanish dictionary by my side for assistance. As far as I’m concerned, the paper system works, because I’m able to get an answer to “who owned/owns this?” in less than two days of work on my own.

I can’t get a response out of MERS that quickly, so it is therefore an inferior system.


43 posted on 11/12/2010 7:09:33 PM PST by NVDave
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To: Chunga85

Am I still on your ping list?

I hope so!


44 posted on 11/14/2010 11:15:40 AM PST by azhenfud (The government is not best which secures life and property-there is a more valuable thing-manhood.)
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To: Mouton

That’s not quite right. The banks want to speed up the foreclosures and get the property resold (even at a loss)and the reason is - those mortgages that are MBS which people are defaulting on? The Banks/Servicers are paying the monthly payments to the MBS trust to avoid letting the investors know just how toxic the trust is. They are speeding up the foreclosures to try and get some of their own money back.

My question - In a lot of cases, if the Banks/Servicers continue to pay the Trust/investors (who actually OWN the mortgage assuming the note is in the Trust)- then there is NO DEFAULT. Whether my mortgage payment according to the terms of my note is paid by me, my grandmother, the neighbor down the street or the servicer is irrelevant. The Trust (investor) owns my note, not the servicer - so how can they claim I’ve defaulted if the investor has been paid monthly?


45 posted on 11/19/2010 11:17:08 AM PST by GYPSY286 (Politicians must USE their heads or Americans will LOSE their heads.)
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To: HereInTheHeartland

So you are on record as not wanting banks to have to follow the law?


46 posted on 11/19/2010 11:20:14 AM PST by MortMan (To Obama "Kill them all and let [God] sort them out" is an abortion slogan.)
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To: Mouton

Who has standing to sue for foreclosure? Under the law as it is written, only the holder of the title.

Unless you also propose to eliminate the concept of “standing”, which would likely bring some interesting lawsuits about a certain Hawaii birth certificate to light.


47 posted on 11/19/2010 11:24:19 AM PST by MortMan (To Obama "Kill them all and let [God] sort them out" is an abortion slogan.)
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To: MortMan
“So you are on record as not wanting banks to have to follow the law?”

How many laws should we have? Are you in favor of more regulation?
Have you applied for a mortgage loan recently? Go out and ask people who can't close on a mortgage because of underwriting technicalities; if the hassle they are put through actually proves they are a better credit risk.

Or, go out and attempt to move an investment from your current investment company to another company.

The housing crisis was not caused by a lack of forms being filled out by mortgage lenders.

48 posted on 11/19/2010 11:33:24 AM PST by HereInTheHeartland (Vote like Obama is on the ballot)
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To: MortMan
“So you are on record as not wanting banks to have to follow the law?”

How many laws should we have? Are you in favor of more regulation?
Have you applied for a mortgage loan recently? Go out and ask people who can't close on a mortgage because of underwriting technicalities; if the hassle they are put through actually proves they are a better credit risk.

Or, go out and attempt to move an investment from your current investment company to another company.

The housing crisis was not caused by a lack of forms being filled out by mortgage lenders.

49 posted on 11/19/2010 11:33:32 AM PST by HereInTheHeartland (Vote like Obama is on the ballot)
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To: HereInTheHeartland

It’s not about the forms, or the lack thereof. It is about the fact that the contract entered into between the lender and the buyer, supported by explicit laws addressing the way lenders and buyers have to behave, has been breached.

What I see happening is that everyone wants the head of the buyer when they broach the agreement.

But you, explicitly, are arguing that for CONVENIENCE, the lender must be allowed to break the law AND the contract with impunity.

You apparently do not care if laws are broken, as long as you are not inconvenienced. Convenience is a fickle an unforgiving god, FRiend.


50 posted on 11/19/2010 11:59:03 AM PST by MortMan (To Obama "Kill them all and let [God] sort them out" is an abortion slogan.)
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To: qwertypie; robertpaulsen

You remind me very much of Freeper Robert Paulsen.


51 posted on 11/19/2010 12:24:17 PM PST by houeto ("You know, I actually believe my own bullsh_t," --- BHO)
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To: MortMan
Ok, tell us what contracts have been breached.
Other than the ones where someone is supposed to pay their mortgage.
52 posted on 11/19/2010 12:25:15 PM PST by HereInTheHeartland (Vote like Obama is on the ballot)
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To: HereInTheHeartland

The ones where the title holder is required to maintain a correct record of title transfers according to the various state and county laws. Destruction of deed for convenience is not a valid method for opting out of these laws.

The lender is required tio maintain the title/note in order to prove they have an interest in the home.

You know - just like the buyer is required to be current on the payments.

BUT - if the lender cannot show they own the note, they are not allowed under the law as written to sue for foreclosure.

The banks, in these cases, screwed themselves. You advocate forgiving their breach of the law that underlies the contract (which breaches the contract), while you also advocate punishing the buyer, who did not violate the underlying law, but did violate the contract.

Dichotomy, thy name is HereInTheHeartland.


53 posted on 11/19/2010 12:40:28 PM PST by MortMan (To Obama "Kill them all and let [God] sort them out" is an abortion slogan.)
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To: MortMan
“Destruction of deed for convenience is not a valid method for opting out of these laws.”

As Colonel Potter used to say, that's horsehockey. Everyone who is in mortgage trouble is grasping at straws and technicalities.
Just like the lawyers who advertise to help.
They will look through every page of a mortgage closing package, (100 pages of documents) looking for 1 page where maybe an initial was missed. They try to use garbage like that to unwind a refinance from 3 years ago and let their client of the hook.
That's just theft.

54 posted on 11/19/2010 12:53:29 PM PST by HereInTheHeartland (Vote like Obama is on the ballot)
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To: HereInTheHeartland

Let me clear up a misconception for you.

THE LAW APPLIES TO BOTH SIDES OF THE CONTRACT.

I am not advocating that deadbeats be forgiven. BUT, the law specifies that a lender MUST be able to prove they hold the title to foreclose.

The MERS system was designed to circumvent the recording rules of teh states and counties. The fact that there are lawyers who will look for technicalities in each paperwork package doesn’t mean that willful destruction of titles for convenience isn’t wrong.

If you are unwilling or unable to see that BOTH sides are culpable in many of these screwed up cases, I cannot help you. I’m not sure there is anyone that can.

Once more, to be clear, I am NOT advocating that the banks are always wrong and the buyers are always right. I am simply identifying that there are many cases today where BOTH are wrong. You have stated that the banks should receive the benefit of the doubt, whereas the buyer should not. I am stating that, in the case where the title was physically destroyed to immerse the property in MERS, there is not always a bank who is legally entitled to foreclose.

I favor following the law AND contract as written.

You favor following the contract, regardless of the law.

My statements apply specifically to the situation where a bank cannot prove it holds title.

Your statements cover with a general blanket, as far as I can tell.

You are wrong.


55 posted on 11/19/2010 1:21:44 PM PST by MortMan (To Obama "Kill them all and let [God] sort them out" is an abortion slogan.)
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To: em2vn

Check out the latest...your foreclosure can be stopped. There’s a massive lawsuit against Wells Fargo / Wachovia, Indymac / OneWest bank, Citibank, Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, GMAC.......... people are getting immediate relief
https://sites.google.com/site/sueyourlendernow/


56 posted on 01/06/2011 4:10:19 PM PST by TerryJo
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