robo-signers
by Mike on October 9, 2013
You’ve got a forged signature in your mortgage documents. You’ve got them dead to rights—there’s no doubt it’s a fake. You’re excited, because you think you might have a free house. So, can you cancel your mortgage? The answer may surprise you. Who Else Wants a Free House? A lot of homeowners call us, having […]
by Mike on November 30, 2011
The woman who blew the whistle to spark the first major robo-signing fraud indictments is dead. Yves at Naked Capitalism tells the story: Nevada notary Tracy Lawrence, who was due to be sentenced today to up to a year in jail for a single count of misdemeanor fraud, went missing from her sentencing hearing today […]
by Mike on July 21, 2011
Foreclosure lawyers may have a duty to set aside foreclosures that were based on robo-signed affidavits, under an ethics opinion recently approved by the Florida Bar. The opinion (below), produced by bar staff in January of this year, responds to a hypothetical question from an unknown lawyer. The Surrogate Signer Hypothetical Under the hypothetical fact-pattern […]
by Mike on April 18, 2011
Every once in a while we get a court opinion that spells out exactly what kind of fraud is happening in foreclosure cases, who is responsible, and how they do it. In Re: Wilson is one of those opinions. Read on and prepare to be shocked—unless you’ve read this kind of thing before. An Abuse […]
by Mike on April 14, 2011
In the wake of the robo-signing scandal that broke last fall, one of the drumbeat-steady excuses you heard from the banks and their PR machines was that, despite what they called “procedural irregularities”, all the foreclosures were justified. No one, they claimed was thrown out on the street by mistake. Well, now we know that […]
by Mike on March 30, 2011
Did you know that one company is to blame for most, if not all, of the outright fraud found in foreclosures across the country? That one company handles the overwhelming majority of so-called “defaulted” loans? That one company generates—i.e. fabricates—all the paperwork, hires all the lawyers, tracks all the numbers, and pulls all the strings? […]
by Mike on February 11, 2011
Ben-Ezra and Katz is having a very bad day indeed. Not only has Fannie Mae just pulled the plug on the firm’s authorization to handle its cases, the firm’s founder had to appear before a Miami-Dade judge this morning to explain why his firm filed several fraudulent documents in a foreclosure case there. The judge […]
by Mike on September 30, 2010
Chase Follows GMAC, Freezes Foreclosures JP Morgan Chase announced a freeze on mortgage foreclosures in 23 states—including Florida—just a few days after GMAC did the same. Chase took this unusual action because it could not tell whether it had submitted false affidavits or had committed perjury before the foreclosure courts of those states. While announcing […]
by Mike on September 24, 2010
It’s nearly impossible to keep up with the firehose of attention the national media are giving the Stephan/GMAC/Ally foreclosure scandals, so I’ll just do a quick summary of some recent articles: The Washington Post: Ally Financial legal issue with foreclosures may affect other mortgage companies Jeffrey Stephan was required to review cases to make sure […]
by Mike on September 15, 2010
Florida Default Law Group this week sent out a wave of bizarre “Notices” in many of its foreclosure cases, to “withdraw” affidavits Florida Default Law Group filed as evidence in various foreclosure cases. Are Jeffery Stephan Affidavits False? The affidavits in question were signed by a man named Jeffrey Stephan, who claimed in various cases […]
Foreclosure plaintiff submits faked assignment documents in Pasco case Imagine you’ve been sued for foreclosure. Now, imagine the plaintiff submits, as evidence, a bunch of falsified documents to establish its right to foreclose. That could never happen, right? Wrong. It did, and Pasco Judge Lynn Tepper found out and would not stand for it, in […]