Posted on 07/26/2011 10:51:51 AM PDT by JerseyHighlander
Two former Florida prosecutors are accusing the state Attorney General of firing them for going after mortgage lenders too aggressively.
The Sun Sentinel reported that Theresa Edwards and June Clarkson were abruptly fired by Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi at the end of May and say the attention they were focusing on combating mortgage fraud was the reason.
"Obviously we did our job too well," Edwards told the Sentinel. "We were making too much noise."
Bondi's chief of staff Carlos Muniz released a long statement to the newspaper which said that Edwards and Clarkson were let go because of problems related to "proper identification and analysis of legal issues ... judgment in discussing matters related to pending investigations with third parties ... and ... professionalism to opposing counsel."
But both women had consistently received strong evaluations, according to the Sentinel. So what gives?
Edwards told the newspaper in an email that she and Clarkson "were pleased that the Attorney General's Office was dedicating more attorneys to foreclosure fraud, but said she also found it curious that they would do so without letting the two lawyers provide any transition notes on their cases," the newspaper reported.
"I will be interested to see the results of all the hours and energy that is now being used on these investigations," Edwards wrote. Reported the Sentinel:
Edwards and Clarkson attracted widespread media attention for the exposure of foreclosure mills, turning up fraudulent signatures and fake names on documents being used to oust people from their homes. Documents didn't have the correct dates. Large financial institutions couldn't always produce the proper paperwork.
But as the women were racking up cases, Bondi also came under fire for being soft on mortgage lenders.
ping
gnip
mortgage notes are not checks, mere existence is not enough.
a COMPLETE chain of ownership must be conclusivly demonstrated. That is why the banks and specifically their lawyers have been resorting to fraud.
...........The banks can document the existence of a loan to the deadbeat home buyer who hasn’t been making the mortgage payments. What they can’t do, without a lot of additional work, is prove that they have clear title to the home. ...........
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Sorry Zhang ,, the banks cannot document the existance of a loan ,, nor can they show that payments have or have not been made on a particular mortgage because the mortgages stopped existing when they were turned into marketable securities,,, YOUR PAYMENTS DO NOT GO TOWARD PAYING YOUR MORTGAGE ,, they go to a pool ... There is no accounting for any one mortgage ... as to your 3rd point about showing clear title you are equally wrong ... they cannot show clear title “without a lot of additional work” ,, they quite simply cannot because they did not document sales , they did not record assignments , they did not actually sell them for value , they instead pretended to sell them for value to the trustees of the SPV’s but never actually acted...
The banks have been paid IN FULL for each and every one of these mortgages ... WHERE IS THE MONEY? Caymans? Bahamas?
Well, Joe, he is from Joysey afterall! Might be a Corsine Republican....just sayin'!
I understand your personal bias. The rule of law says the banks MUST show chain of documentation BEFORE they have standing to sue.
it is not optional.
you do not even get to the homeowner unless they can fulfill the strict legal requirements. Through MERS and the default swaps the banks sought to evade the need and thought homeowners would just roll over. They did not.
The fact mortage payments were or were not made is irrelivant. Using the term “deadbeat” is ridiculous because you do not consider the predatory aspects used by banks. Banks had specific appraisers who inflated prices, banks were putting regular loan qualified people into high risk loan products.
deadbeat all you can, the fact is there are serious insiders and the Florida Bar looks to be supporting the mega forclosure mills.
It's not criminal to be stupid, and not criminal to buy a bigger home than you can afford. That's what foreclosure and bankruptcy laws are for.
It is criminal to lie about the creditworthiness of a borrower when selling the loan to Fanny/Freddie or into an MBS.
It is criminal to foreclose on a house for which you do not hold the mortgage.
It is criminal to foreclose on a house where the borrower is up to date on payments, but your clerk just forgot to enter the payment into the books.
It is criminal to supply forged paperwork to the courts.
Yves Smith at Naked Capitalism has lots of links to examples of such crimes, and she doesn't even specialize in the fraudclosure problem.
The State AG's should only be concerned with real criminals, not stupid borrowers. Allowing stupid borrowers seems to have been public policy, so how could it be a crime?
excellent post, thx, I think you’ve made the distinction between the big perps and the stupid little guys (in these sorts of cases) very clear
The so-called professionals in banking, law, finance etc. who knew (or should have known) better are the serious perps in all the huge financial calamities which unfolded here. Stupid little guys who took mortgages beyond their means would normally be *only* local, personal crises for the families involved (bad for them but not for our national and global economies)..... until so many thousand/s millions were recruited and enabled by scandalous practices gone out of control.
Your a troll . Who are you trying to fool !
Do you any idea how many private individuals were scamming mortgages and home improvement loans !
Exactly right. Even in cases where they have all the paperwork right it’s taking 2 years to move people out.
Robosigners? This makes banks villians? there has been surprising few cases of people being put of their homes when they shouldn’t of been. It’s freeloaders crying that they can’t freeload anymore.
part of the problem is that the banks that lent the money are gone
The notes were divided up (derivatives) and repeatedly resold in pieces without any chain of title
the homes in forclosure are just the tip of the iceberg
MERS and such were created to become a clearing house for loans without any assignment of the mortgages in an attempt to cover up the clouds on the titles and avoid filing fees to the various county clerks
it's clearly fraud and they have been creating false documents and submitting them to the courts in an effort to forclose on homes and some judges have been rubber stamping the frauduland documentation churned out by the forclosure mills representing MERS
why should anyone (deadbeat or current) pay their mortgage to someone who has no clear claim to the debt?
It's a slow train coming and when it gets here you may find that you have been paying your mortgage to an entity who doesn't own your mortgage
the banks are trying to strike a deal with the various states attorney generals to avoid prosecution for the fraud and given the mountains of litigation the state AGs are folding
you may find that you will never get a clear title to your home even if you pay off the mortgage and/or someone else may make a claim against your property for the divided debt
.
Example: You buy a home for $300,000 in 2005. Your income is $30,000. The teaser rate is 3%. The broker puts down $60,000 for your income. Countrywise holds the loan.
In 2008 you lose your job. You try to sell the house. Find the going rate in Florida is $120,000. Ask bank for permission to short sell. Bank is already bankrupt. Contact clerk to find out who owns the loan. No sale of loan on file. You don’t get any payment strips for six months. When you do, it is MERS. You send in payments, but they say you are already six months behind and say you must pay $4,500 in back payments, plus penalties of $3,500, and by the way the teaser rate is over so your interest rate has gone from 3% to 8% and your payment has doubled to $2,500 per month ($2,000 on the loan, and $500 for taxes and insurance). You go to court to verify whether the MERS info is correct.
MERS files foreclosure, even though they sold your loan in seven tranches in securities owned by seven different companies, including two in Europe. The buyers were told by MERS that this was all legal. However, although MERS is no longer the legal owner of the mortgage, they keep servicing the loan, and do not tell you the loan was sold, or file the legal papers with the county clerk where you live. Furthermore, MERS has lost or misplaced all original records proving they owned the loan in the first place.
Your lawyer asks for proof MERS owns the loan (which they don’t). MERS hires a company that forges the necessary papers. They barely needed to bother, as the judge will be going to work for the foreclosure law firm next month. At least one felony, and possibly four, have been committed. none by you.
Sadly, this is typical - although Florida judges are looking more closely in some counties.
I agree with you in principle about the deadbeats, but innocent people are also getting caught up in these issues such as folk getting foreclosed on because of mistaken addresses or other sorts of mistaken identities. The banks and the lawyers involved with realty transactions need to clean up their paperwork to make sure the lines of ownership are clear and precise. If a person wants to sell their house, that person needs to have the records of his ownership and mortgage clear without the possibility that some other party might challenge that ownership and or the right to sell that house!
BTW, perhaps you can toss me some advice on this matter: I have two mortgages on two different properties (one main residence, one rental), and both are with WF.
Here in Florida insurance, as you probably know, is a problem unto itself on several levels. My rate just got upped 30%. I am thinking of simply bailing on home insurance and 'go bare', as they say. What are the practical and legal ramifications of this? I know the banks won't like it, but if they aren't going after people who paid their mortgages in over a year, I'm thinking they aren't going to waste time going after me over just the insurance requirement. Thoughts?
Because that's the law, and we have equal protection guarantees. If the bank can't prove it holds the right to foreclose, it doesn't get to foreclose.
Not all of the borrowers are deadbeats. But all of the banks involved in these troubles are crooks and cheats. When they have the paperwork down right, things go smoothly.
And in some of the cases, the banks foreclose on a home for no mortgage ever existed
The prosecutors should go after criminals, period. That some of the folks who got cheated by those criminals aren't of sterling character is not of concern.
The banks can document that a loan might have been made. What they can't prove is who is now entitled to recover that loan.
So, like the other guy said, what in your world would stop me and every other freeper from filing foreclosure on your loan with papers we create just to 'speed up' the process?
If a bank with 'speedy' paperwork forecloses, what happens when the MBS trustee comes by with the real paperwork and wants payback?
Are you ok with false documents to 'speed up' citizenship? to reduce your tax burden? to get your lawyer's licence? False documents are a crime, plain and simple.
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