It’s isn’t a good thing to lie to Uncle Sam.
Hundreds of thousands of foreclosures are in jeopardy as what is effectively a national foreclosure freeze takes hold – and it isn’t even Autumn yet.
On Wednesday, **Attorneys General in all 50 states announced a joint investigation into whether the so-called “robo-signers” (people who simply signed hundreds of foreclosure affidavits every day) actually read the underlying documents and made sure they were correct – as they swore in the affidavits.
Lying on an affidavit is a big deal because filing an affidavit is like taking an oath. You swear that the information in the affidavit is correct. If you lie about something in an affidavit, the law views it the same way as if you lied on the stand during a trial.
In the joint probe, the Attorneys General will look to see whether the banks and mortgage loan servicers used false documents and signatures and improperly filed affidavits in order to proceed with tens of thousands of foreclosures.
Did the foreclosure “robo-signers” violate the law?
Some are arguing that processing thousands of foreclosures each month without reviewing the foreclosure documentation and without having the documents signed in the presence of a notary, as required by most state laws, is consumer fraud.
Clearly, many homeowners have been swept up in the foreclosure mess who probably shouldn’t be there. One of them, Danielle Hernandez-Romero, wrote to me recently saying her lender, Bank of America, foreclosed on her even though she was making her payments in a trial loan modification. There was no notice. On top of that, Fannie Mae started eviction proceedings.
After she filed a complaint with the OCC and I forwarded her case number to the OCC for special consideration, she finally got a call from a Bank of America representative who told her he would help her get her house back – even though he had never worked on a case where the property had already been foreclosed. Today she heard from someone at Fannie Mae who was going to try to stop the eviction proceedings.
KVUE in Austin, TX, included her in a story about the foreclosure freeze that aired last night.
When you have robo-signers who process foreclosures without checking to see if the documents behind the foreclosure make any sense, there are bound to be errors. Bank of America spokesman Dan Frahm told me last Friday that the only mistakes they’re finding are where certain fees are different in the foreclosure documents than in the affidavits, but that is because states limit many of those fees.
Maybe. But the real question is whether those foreclosures should be in the pile at all.
Please leave your comments on the blog.
Toxic housing will continue to poison the economy until Congress sees it for what it is….an economic Pearl Harbor
Only a WW II type national commitment will solve this problem…when it is solved….America`s “job problem” will be solved
How do I determine/confirm that my California foreclosure (May 2009) properly. Where would I begin-I have no paperwork. I was just told my the attorney who attempted (twice) to get a loan modification that I had no option but to move-so I did.
This has basically been a bullying of the consumer. They are telling people to do the trial modifications with all intentions of asking them for the total balance in the end. I have had several clients do the trial modifications only to find out that the bank wasn’t planning to do anything but demand the entire balance at the end of the trial period. What happened to Mrs. Hernandez-Romero is happening industrywide. The attitude based on the mitigators that I have spoken to is “It’s our way or the highway” they do not have a spirit of cooperation at all. If it wasn’t for people like Mrs Glink the banks hands would go unchecked. They would keep doing this to consumers when they are attempting to work it out. The banks also do not want to acknowledge the decrease in value. What would be fair is for them to reduce everyones interest rate to current market conditions and reassess values and then freeze it there–then we could move forward.
What about all these people that are sitting in their homes rent free for up to a year or even more. Last time I checked, when you have a payment due, then you should pay it since you agreed to on the mortgage paper work you signed. So let me get this straight…it is o.k. to not pay your mortgage, but the banks are in big trouble if they fail to cross all their t’s and dot all their I’s. Sit in your home rent free, then sue the bank…..Well, this is the new America.
And who gets to pay for this mess? The tax payer of course. People who are responsible and read the paperwork before they sign it.
Perjury, unfortunately is merely the tip of the iceberg. An iceberg is so huge and heavy, that only 1/5th of it floats above the water line. 4/5ths or the bulk remains hidden underwater, a danger to any ship that ventures too near.
Perjury by robosigners,who signed documents that they didn’t read, yet signed that they had indeed read and verified the documents were then notarized and the notaries committed perjury by attesting that the person had signed in their presence, Frequently the signer, singed someone elses name, a major no-no on court documents.
While this could invalidate the foreclosures, the real problem lies in the Mortgage Backed Securities (MBS) that the big banks & brokerage houses sold. These toxic bonds may not have been legally structured, as they were held thru a trust called MERS created by the banks.
A property had 90 days after sale to be registered and recognized by the trust, if this time period elapsed, their is no way to retroactively add the properties without revoking the tax status of the trust and render the securites void.
Apparently many of the liens against property were not properly recorded at the county level and many are missing or lost. These wet ink copies cannot be recreated.
Chaos would be the best description of the mortgage industry at this juncture. Collapse will be the next word that describes the nightmare created by destroying the rule of law and justice that lay at the foundation of our court system and our way of life.
The bankers did more than destroy themselves, for which we the taxpayers bailed them out, they also destroyed our economy and our legal system.
Toxic banks and bankers are the gift that keeps giving like a dirty bomb spewing radioactive waste for eternity.
It WILL be toxic, if the banks and all involved in the illegal fraud securitizations and foreclosures are not held fully accountable and made to take their losses. Most lenders have already been PAID by selling/securitizing the mortgage note. Then the lenders collected the mortgage insurance when they foreclosed. To force the borrower to pay more on the mortgage, without full assurance of clear title at the end, is ROBBERY by government -approved gangsters. We MUST stop this, if our judicial system is to be truly fair and “blind” as constitutionally conceived.
i need to know if anyone has any experience with roundpoint mortgage out of north carolina they are absolutely incompetant, liars and thieves. if any one has had problems with them please post a comment
Roundpoint fabricated an assignment that never was filed to foreclose on my property and now has assigned it to a llc in the middle of foreclosure
all this past 5 year statue of limitations