BY RUTH SIMON, ROBIN SIDEL AND NICK TIMIRAOS
The push by mortgage companies to accelerate the snarled foreclosure process is running into resistance from judges who are cracking down on sloppy paperwork.
In Florida, a state-court judge has begun forcing lawyers to defend fees charged to borrowers by law firms. Maryland’s state appeals court told judges that they can hire experts to scrutinize paperwork filed in foreclosure proceedings—and make lawyers swear that the documents are accurate.
Since last month, New York has threatened to use “penalties of perjury” against lawyers caught filing bad documents, even if they didn’t know about the problems when the foreclosure process began.
Filed under: bubble, CDO, CORRUPTION, currency, Eviction, foreclosure, GTC | Honor, Investor, Mortgage, securities fraud |
I couldn’t agree with Cheryl more! If they gave a mortgage to someone for $300K @ sub-prime or high interest loan for 30 years who only made $11K, then they should be willing to modify the loan to give the same person an affordable mortgage at a fixed rate for 100 years. Banks do not like to own real estate, investors in real estate aren’t buying because they can’t flip the houses any more because those who would buy are having trouble obtaining mortgages, and for the same reason realtors aren’t having much luck moving houses that the banks have foreclosed on in most areas. The banks and their investors need to get off their high horses and recognize that receiving some money is better than receiving no money and having to pull money out of their tills to support an unoccupied property that may ultimately end up being condemned and bulldozed in the end.
MERS cannot derive rights by signing off on a modification that it did not have under the original loan – especially, if the original loan remains in existence, nor can it derive rights it does not have under a states law. Beware> MERS being the signatory to your modification. This may become the next wave of fraudulent practices uncovered in this country if modifications begin to go into default or not. I wonder how many modifications are in fact valid??
MA is doing nothing. How does a person lose their home not being in arrears. Ours was sold without our knowledge in October 2008 15 days prior to the due date. We sent our payment on time and it was refused and sent back with no reason stated. It was almost a month later that we found out by an employee at Senator Kennedys office who notified the bank on our behalf that they stated we signed an agreement to change our due date to the 15th of the month. We never did and they could never prove and they also ignored the MA foreclosure laws chapter 244 section 14 which states you have to be sent a registered letter with a 30 day notice of sale and it has to be advertised in the newspaper for 3 consecutive weeks. None of this was done and we spent almost $40,000 on atty fees only to have a corrupt judge that ignored the facts of the law. We need help to expose our story. There is alot more that they are guilty of since we never had a legal agreement without our closing papers which took 4 1/2 yrs and proved we had a right to rescind. In 150,000 made in payments 0 was applied to the principal and we did not have an interest only loan. The house is still vacant 2 yrs later.
What about the people that have already been foreclosed on who thought they had a mod in place .Maryland is a non judicial state and they foreclosed on home by the thousands. I followed the paper and at least 27 per week. What about us, My home is still on the market they dropped the price by half. I WANT MY HOME BACK I was making my payments till they added an escrow that was not written in the loan anywhere, was slapped on me i made the regular payment with out the escrow. What about that …….
We need to organize and get busy with letter-writing/phone calling.
WE could possibly have a site that catalogs all the bogus garbage. The specifics of name, address, loan number and MIN number would need to be kept hidden, but this would be a way to catalog all the potential fraud that each contributor is aware of.
This could then be used as clout when talking facts with the media and with government reps.
They need to be thrown out of court anytime they show up! It’s so obvious now that there are other things they are trying to hide, other scams and ponzi schemes they are trying to get paid off on before everything totally blows up on them. Grab the money and run, only they keep tripping over us, the victims.
I’m curious, where are all the “deadbeats”, those who don’t deserve any help?
Since this debacle began, I have yet to see or hear from anyone who hadn’t been scammed, cheated, defrauded, lied to, mislead, or otherwise mistreated in some way by the pretender lenders! Not one.
Not one person has stepped up and said, “I knew we didn’t deserve this house” or “We just didn’t feel like paying”, even those with the subprime loans were trying, were paying up until rates reset and notes went obscenely high.
It’s not like millions ran out and bought Hummers or new speedboats!
No, people bought homes to live in, to raise their families in, for security and family stability. It was what we all worked hard for and to keep.
And to be called deadbeats by the those who already have everything paid for, have a home or two, can afford to buy and live anywhere in the world they want to is an insult. But it about takes a sane person over the edge when those doing the most accusing are the very ones who orchestrated the entire crisis for their own enrichment!
Yeah we need more lawsuits until we have the tsunami of all time rolling over the pretender lenders!
There are several “F” words–fraud, false statements, fraudulent documents, etc. We hire lawyers, because we need legal documents which are just that–legal. The lawyers are taking the money under fraudulent circumstances. Creating false documents out of whole cloth is a hugh felony. A friend of mine lost her house to HSBC after she made a $10,000 payment to bring her loan current with a forbearance agreement. The forbearance agreement disappeared at the pretender/lender, they cashed her $10,000 check and she went to foreclosure and lost her house and her money. How can this be going on in the USA? We need many more lawsuits until it is a tsunami. http://www.challengingforeclosure.com Sirak@challeningforeclosure.com
Well, David, we can’t very well use the “F” word (fraud), can we now?
Sloppy paperwork?