Consumer Law

$275,000 Sanctions in Mortgage Shell Game

By Alan White

A Massachusetts federal court has affirmed the imposition of $275,000 in penalties against Ameriquest Mortgage and its lawyers for misrepresenting the ownership of a mortgage in bankruptcy court filings.  Ameriquest originated the mortgage, then assigned it to a securitization trust and also transferred the servicing rights to another company.  After doing all that, it nevertheless filed a claim in the borrower's bankruptcy and filed various pleadings continuing to misrepresent that it owned the mortgage.  Judge Young's strongly worded opinion in In re Nosek makes a connection between the evident sloppiness about keeping track of mortgage ownership and the broader financial crisis:  "How is it that our profession, the legal profession ? which could have and should have strongly counseled against the self interested excesses that set up the collapse ? instead has eagerly aided and abetted those very excesses?"

Full post as published by CL&P Blog on May 27, 2009 (boomark / email).