Free Republic

It is official. State and federal governments have condoned forgery, perjury and fraud in what’s been called the “robo-signing” foreclosure debacle. Last week, the five biggest banks in America signed on to a $26 billion deal that, basically, lets them off with a slap on the wrist for fraudulently foreclosing on homes in the last few years. I am not going to go on and on about how unfair and unjust this deal was or how the rule of law has been thrown down the stairs. I am going to focus on the fallout of this morally corrupt deal. There...

One of the largest companies that provided home foreclosure services to lenders across the nation, DocX, has been indicted on forgery charges by a Missouri grand jury — one of the few criminal actions to follow reports of widespread improprieties against homeowners. A grand jury in Boone County, Mo., handed up an indictment Friday accusing DocX of 136 counts of forgery in the preparation of documents used to evict financially strained borrowers from their homes. Lorraine O. Brown, the company’s founder and former president, was indicted on the same charges. Employees of DocX, a unit of Lender Processing Services of...

Mortgage industry employees are still signing documents they haven't read and using fake signatures more than eight months after big banks and mortgage companies promised to stop the illegal practices that led to a nationwide halt of home foreclosures. County officials in at least three states say they have received thousands of mortgage documents with questionable signatures since last fall, suggesting that the practices, known collectively as "robo-signing," remain widespread in the industry. The documents have come from several companies that process mortgage paperwork, and have been filed on behalf of several major banks. One name, "Linda Green," was signed...

The bank now trying to foreclose on Marjorie Gunter has produced a troubled paper trail. OneWest submitted a document signed this February to prove that the original lender for her mortgage, a company called MortgageIT, had signed over ownership to OneWest. But MortgageIT, owned by Deutsche Bank, wasn't in business in February. It had ceased operations three years earlier, in 2008. A Deutsche Bank spokesman declined to comment. Even if the February document were authentic, it wasn't recorded until nearly 10 months after OneWest had launched its foreclosure action, which began in May 2010. Real estate law throughout the United...

Yesterday we reported that Sarah Palin has just purchased a new property in North Scottsdale, AZ for $1.75 million. We further speculated that there may have been some fishyness with regard to the terms of the purchase of the JPM short sale which was an over 100% flip in about a year. So far so good. Where this story takes yet another detour into the macabre, is a cursory analysis of the release deed of the prior mortgage holder of the property, one Steven Soraya, who had a loan amounting to $980,500.00 with Wells Fargo, which was released on July...

Banks Face Renewed Headwinds In the fall of 2010, there was no shortage of news regarding faulty foreclosure processes, aka "robo-signing." Bank stocks took a hit and the threat of a nationwide foreclosure moratorium appeared imminent. Then came the concept of put back risk to the big banks claiming violations of reps and warranty agreements or pooling and servicing agreements (PSAs). Since that time the media has gone rather quiet on the subject and the price action in the bank stocks would imply all is well. BAC settled for pennies on the dollar with one of the GSEs and the...

Mortgage Modification Overhaul Sought by States MORTGAGES, FANNIE MAE, FREDDIE MAC, 30-YEAR LOAN, INTEREST RATES, HOUSING, REAL ESTATE, CONSUMERS The New York Times | 05 Mar 2011 | 12:20 PM ET State attorneys general have presented the nation’s five biggest banks with a list of demands that could drastically alter the foreclosure process and give the government sweeping authority over how mortgage servicers deal with millions of Americans in danger of losing their homes. Under the blueprint, banks would be prohibited from starting foreclosure proceedings while a borrower was actively trying to lower the interest rate or ease other terms...

NEW YORK — JPMorgan Chase is expanding its review of foreclosures to 41 states as pressure builds on banks to answer allegations of document fraud.The bank is now reviewing about 115,000 foreclosure cases, up from 56,000, Douglas Braunstein, chief financial officer for JPMorgan Chase & Co., said Wednesday. JPMorgan had stopped proceedings in the 23 states that require judicial review of foreclosures and now is looking into similar deals in states where there "could possibly be an issue," spokesman Joseph Evangelisti said.The bank acted in response to evidence that mortgage lenders have used flawed court papers to evict homeowners.Bank officials...

Attorneys General of all 50 states have initiated a joint investigation into foreclosure procedures.Attorneys general from all 50 states have put on a "bi-partisan multistate group" to investigate if faulty procedures were used to sign foreclosures which lead to evictions, as the foreclosure freezes extend with GMAC, one of the largest mortgage providers, deciding to review its procedures at a nationwide level. Bank Of America has already imposed a "freeze" on all of its foreclosures."Robo-signing," as the National Association of Attorneys General puts it, occurred when document signings by people in mortgage providing agencies contained procedural defects, such as signing...

Foreclosure Fraud: It's Worse Than You Think Posted By: Diana Olick | CNBC Real Estate Reporter CNBC.com | 12 Oct 2010 | 01:14 PM ET There has been plenty of pontificating over the ramifications of foreclosure freezes on troubled borrowers, foreclosure buyers and the larger housing market, not to mention lawsuits, investor losses and bank write downs. There has been precious little talk of what the real legal issues are behind the robosigning scandal. Yes, you can't/shouldn't sign documents you never read, but that's just the tip of the iceberg. The real issue is ownership of these loans and who...