The Home Equity Theft Reporter: Real Estate & Property Law

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Real Estate & Property Law

The Home Equity Theft Reporter

Welcome to The Home Equity Theft Reporter, a blog dedicated to informing the consumer public and the legal profession about Home Equity Theft issues.
By r morris

Post Frequency: 25.7/day

Last Entry: September 06, 2017 at 04:02:00

Ohio AG On BofA Fixing Bogus Foreclosure Document Problem In A Matter Of Weeks: "We Are Certainly Not Just Going To Take Their Word For It!"

Posted on October 21, 2010
Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray recently offered the following statement in response to reports that Bank of America plans to restart foreclosures on borrowers in 23 states where issues of possibly fraudulent documentation have been raised:?While I would not presume to speak for all 50 state attorneys general, from my own standpoint, we will want to be very careful in reviewing whatever

Mom, Family Face The Boot After Son Scores Fraudulently-Obtained Loan On Fully Paid-Off Home

Posted on October 21, 2010
In Miami, Florida, The Miami Herald reports:Ten people spanning three generations share a single bathroom in what's left of Annie Edwards' crumbling home in Liberty City. There are holes in the wood floors and trash bags plastered to the leaking ceiling -- and Deutsche Bank is adamant that it wants this 82-year-old structure...

Colorado AG: Sale Leaseback Peddler Stripped $1M+ In Equity By Targeting Financially Unsophisticated, Vulnerable Homeowners In F'closure Rescue Racket

Posted on October 21, 2010
Courthouse News Service reports:Jason L. Lynn, now of Marion, Ohio,(1) and his company, Superior Financial Group, of Superior, Colo., defrauded people through "unlawful foreclosure consulting services," the Colorado attorney general claims in Denver County Court...

West Palm Beach Judges To Stop Ignoring Court Procedural Rules In Uncontested Foreclosure Actions

Posted on October 20, 2010
In West Palm Beach, Florida, The Palm Beach Post reports:Thousands of Palm Beach County homes have been repossessed by lenders that failed to follow a court rule requiring evidence be attached to foreclosure affidavits, something judges often allowed to happen when no one contested the case...

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Sworn Statement: Foreclosure Mill Spread Around Gifts In Exchange For Altering, Forging Key Court Documents

Posted on October 20, 2010
The Tampa Tribune reports:Some employees of Florida's largest "foreclosure mill" were given jewelry, cars and houses from the firm, in exchange for altering and forging key documents used to obtain foreclosures, according to a statement released today by the Florida Attorney General's Office...

The Controversy Continues On Role Of MERS In Foreclosures

Posted on October 20, 2010
Bloomberg News reports:On July 1, a federal judge took away Robert Bellistri?s house in Arnold, Missouri. Bellistri, who bought the house as an investment after it was seized for non-payment of taxes, failed to notify Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems Inc...

White House Supports 50 State AG Probe Into Allegedly Fabricated Court Documents As BofA, GMAC Announce Foreclosure Resumption

Posted on October 20, 2010
The Wall Street Journal reports:The White House is committed to holding banks accountable for any legal violations tied to housing foreclosures, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said Tuesday. Gibbs also reiterated that the administration "strongly" supports an investigation by 50 state attorneys general into allegations that bank employees signed foreclosure documents without carefully

C. Fla. F'closure Rescue Scammer Gets 10 Years In Ripoff Using Phony Non-Profit 'Front'; Described By Prosecutor As "A Kind Of Slow-Motion Theft"

Posted on October 19, 2010
In Tampa, Florida, the St. Petersburg Times reports:Peter J. Porcelli, a Pinellas businessman who made millions in telemarketing and owned the world-champion Tampa Bay Smokers fast-pitch softball team, was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison [] for defrauding dozens of local homeowners with a foreclosure relief scam...

NJ AG Reaches $800K Deal w/ Firms, Principals To Settle Phony Loan Modification Allegations; Outfit Allegedly Used 'Non-Profit' Front To Con Victims

Posted on October 19, 2010
From the Office of the New Jersey Attorney General:Attorney General Paula T. Dow announced [] that the owner of several New Jersey loan modification companies has agreed to pay the state $805,000 and stay out of the foreclosure rescue business to resolve allegations he defrauded struggling homeowners who sought help in staving off foreclosure...

State AG Scores Win In Civil Suit As Central Florida Loan Modification Racket, Owners Get Tagged With $4.3M Court Judgment

Posted on October 19, 2010
From the Office of the Florida Attorney General:Attorney General Bill McCollum [] announced that his office received a $4.3 million dollar judgment against what is believed to have been Central Florida?s largest loan modification operation. [The] judgment is against Wineberg, Lopez, & Rodriguez, and its owners, William Rodriguez, Jr...

Chicago FHLB Accuses Banks Of Unloading Crappy RMBS On Them; Lawsuit: We Unwittingly "Purchased Toxic Stew Of Doomed Mortgage Loans"

Posted on October 19, 2010
Bloomberg News reports:Federal Home Loan Bank of Chicago sued lenders including Bank of America Corp. claiming their failure to disclose relaxed subprime mortgage underwriting standards, led it to unknowingly buy risky mortgage-backed securities. The lawsuit was filed an Illinois state court in Chicago(1) by the congressionally chartered wholesale bank, which describes itself on its website as

Florida AG Releases Additional Depositions In Ongoing State Robosigner Probe Into Allegedly Fraudulent Foreclosure Mill Practices

Posted on October 19, 2010
From the Office of the Florida Attorney General:Attorney General Bill McCollum [] released three additional sworn statements in the ongoing investigations into The Law Offices of Marshall C. Watson, P.A. and the Law Offices of David J. Stern, P.A. for their alleged involvement in presenting fabricated documents to the courts in foreclosure actions to obtain final judgments against homeowners...

Indictment Details Use Of Owner Financing, Double Loans At Closing In Home Equity Ripoff Targeting Northern California Seniors

Posted on October 18, 2010
In Fresno, California, The Modesto Bee reports:Investor, beware. That's the best, most concise advice experts give to avoid losing big bucks in alleged property schemes such as those making recent headlines in Modesto. But even extreme vigilance won't stop deception when the bad guys are sophisticated and resort to forgery, said Tom Pool, spokesman for the California Department of Real Estate...

Florida AG Tags LPS, Docx With Subpoenas Ordering Firms To Fork Over Foreclosure Documents, Vendor Contracts As State Robosigner Probe Expands

Posted on October 18, 2010
Bloomberg News reports:Lender Processing Services Inc. and Docx LLC, affiliated companies [under Fidelity National Financial, Inc. control] providing mortgage-processing services to lenders, were subpoenaed by the office of Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum as part of its investigation into possible foreclosure-document fraud...

Flood Of Suits Tagging GMAC With 'Robo-Signer' Charges Appears Imminent; Ohio Man Charges Bank w/ Consumer Law Violations; Lawyer Has 10 More Coming

Posted on October 18, 2010
In Newark, Delaware, the Newark Advocate reports:The inevitable legal response to allegations of fraud on foreclosure documents reached Licking County on Friday with a Johnstown man's lawsuit against GMAC Mortgage and one of its employees.***Michael A...

Title Agent Gets 34 Months For $800K+ Real Estate Escrow, Closing Cash Ripoff

Posted on October 18, 2010
From the Office of the U.S. Attorney (Minneapolis, Minnesota):A 61-year-old Alexandria man was sentenced [...] in federal court in Minneapolis on charges connected to a scheme to defraud mortgage lenders and others out of more than $800,000. United States District Court Judge Joan N...

Sloppy Servicers Now Feel The Heat From Disgruntled Mortgage Bond Buyers As Concerns Rise Over Crappy Monthly Remittance Reports

Posted on October 17, 2010
Asset-Backed Alert (a weekly update on worldwide securitization) reports:Mortgage-bond buyers are losing faith in the accuracy of remittance reports, and some say the apprehension could soon factor into their investment strategies. Remittance reports, distributed monthly by securitization trustees, are supposed to provide routine snapshots of the cashflow-collection and distribution activities of

Fort Lauderdale Judge Gives Florida AG The Go-Ahead In David Stern Robo-Signer Probe; Foreclosure Mill's Counsel Says Appeal Will Follow

Posted on October 17, 2010
In Fort Lauderdale, Florida, the South Florida Sun Sentinel reports:A Broward County judge's ruling on Friday gives Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum the right to continue his investigation into a Plantation foreclosure law firm. Circuit Judge Eileen O'Connor denied a request from the law offices of David J...

Retired Maine Attorney Attracts Spotlight For Work In GMAC Robo-Signer Case

Posted on October 17, 2010
The AmLaw Daily recently interviewed Maine attorney Thomas Cox, one of the attorneys whose deposition of GMAC robo-signer Jeffrey Stefan resulted in a Maine court overthrowing an earlier foreclosure judgment against Cox's client (and thereby forcing GMAC to go to trial on their foreclosure action and sticking them with the tab with some of the fees Cox would have charged his client had he been

Two Maryland Foreclosure Mill Lawyers Come Clean, Confess That They Had Others Robo-Sign Their Names On Affidavits; Could Affect 1000s Of State Cases

Posted on October 17, 2010
The Baltimore Sun reports:Lawyers at two Maryland firms handling foreclosures filed court documents without actually signing the papers themselves, a development that is calling into question the validity of at least some of the home foreclosure cases in the state...

PBS NewsHour On Flawed Paperwork Used In Foreclosure Process

Posted on October 17, 2010
PBS NewsHour with Jim Lehrer recently ran a story on the flawed paperwork being used to challenge foreclosures in court. The story addresses both:The screw-ups taking place on the back end of the securitization process - lenders' attempts to enforce the notes through foreclosure and the use of robo-signers, andThe screw-ups that took place several years back on the front end of the securitization

Why ?Blank Name? Matters and Trustee Obligations

Posted on October 17, 2010
On the blog, The Big Picture, analyst Josh Rosner at independent research firm Graham-Fisher in New York discusses the significance of assigning mortgage-secured promissory notes in "blank" name, and the potential liabilities that arise for the trustees of the mortgage-backed trusts that are supposed to have custody of these promissory notes...

Bogus Docs, Depos Wanted Now! WaPo Puts Out Call For Robo-Signer Foreclosure Documents, Depositions

Posted on October 16, 2010
According to The Washington Post's Political Economy blog:A number of employees of mortgage servicers who signed documents indicating that they had reviewed the accuracy of thousands of foreclosure proceedings have testified in sworn depositions that they didn't actually perform at least some of the reviews...

How 2 Civilian Sleuths Brought Foreclosure Problems To Light

Posted on October 16, 2010
The Bradenton Herald reports:More than a year before lenders, law firms and document companies began owning up to widespread paperwork problems with their foreclosure filings, Lisa Epstein and Michael Redman already knew that something was wrong ? very wrong...

The Bogus Foreclosure Document Drumbeat Continues

Posted on October 16, 2010
The New York Times reports:At JPMorgan Chase & Company, they were derided as ?Burger King kids? ? walk-in hires who were so inexperienced they barely knew what a mortgage was. At Citigroup and GMAC, dotting the i?s and crossing the t?s on home foreclosures was outsourced to frazzled workers who sometimes tossed the paperwork into the garbage...

ABC News On Bank-Ordered Illegal Lock Outs

Posted on October 16, 2010
ABC News reports:It's one of the few booming businesses in this bruised economy ? companies hired by banks to change the locks and take over homes that have been foreclosed. But in a growing number of cases, these real estate repo men are showing up before the foreclosure process is done ? and sometimes, before a home is even in foreclosure...

NY AG Brings Criminal, Civil Charges Against Buffalo Bill Collector Targeting Servicemembers; Outfit Made Threats To Tell Commanding Officers: AG

Posted on October 16, 2010
From the Office of the New York Attorney General:Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo [] announced the filing of felony charges against the owner of a debt collection company that targeted military personnel and harassed active members of the military and their families...

Robo-Signing Scandal: Foreclosing Lenders Acting Like 'Hyenas On The Serengeti'???

Posted on October 16, 2010
An anonymous Guest Author on the blog, The Big Picture, recently referenced a (satirical) press release purportedly from Bank of America regarding its approach to handling foreclosures. An excerpt:Bank of America announced that it has discovered a few trivial, easily-remedied technical problems with some of its mortgages...

Five Face Criminal Charges For Roles In Now-Defunct Upstate NY Sale Leaseback, Equity Stripping Foreclosure Rescue Peddling Operation

Posted on October 15, 2010
In Albany, New York, the Albany Times Union reports:A honeymoon in Europe, cruise to Antigua, spa treatments and free rent. It all came about, authorities say, because of a massive mortgage fraud scheme based on Central Avenue in Colonie. And now five defendants -- including a once-disbarred local attorney -- face felony charges from state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo that could send every one

Spotlight Continues On Head Of Alleged South Florida 'Robo-Signer' Racket

Posted on October 15, 2010
Columnist Max Abelson writes in The New York Observer:Every good crisis deserves a good villain, and every good villain deserves a good yacht. As if the ongoing foreclosure fiasco wasn't already scary enough, the top Wall Street Journal item right now is the news that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are reviewing the work of the enormous Florida law firm run by David J...

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