Posts Tagged ‘foreclosure mill’

Friday Round-Up; Still No Settlement; Schneiderman Looks at REMICs, Judge Loses Cancer Battle

Friday, March 2nd, 2012

Will Schneiderman bring down the banks the same way the Feds nabbed Al Capone?

Big Foreclosure Settlement Still Not Really, Truly, Finally Done

And here we go again. Last month I wondered when we were going to see the documentation behind the ‘$25 billion’ mortgage settlement. Despite the massive action this settlement is now supposedly leading to, there didn’t seem to be a huge rush to get the deal finalized.

The same day I posted my blog it was reported that prosecutors would likely be filing the documents in the courts by the end of the month.

Well February has come and gone, and it appears we’re no closer to seeing the final settlement document. March has started more like a lamb then a lion.

Just as it did when it went up last month, the government’s settlement website still says coming soon where the document should be.

HUD secretary Shaun Donovan told the Senate Housing Committee Tuesday that they shouldn’t worry, that there were just a few i’s to be dotted and a few t’s to be crossed.

Uh huh. Isn’t that what they said the last time? Until the settlement is signed, sealed and delivered, there will still be lingering doubt about it’s language.

Schneiderman Could Focus on REMICs

We’re still seeing just how Eric Schneiderman’s RMBS working group will come together. Today it was reported that Congressman Brad Miller will not become it’s staff director, as the group is seeking an “experienced prosecutor for the job”.

But Chris Whalen of HousingWire offered his idea on how Schneiderman will go after the banks, and as I have also speculated, he believes its tax fraud that could ultimately bring them down.
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Week In Review: Foreclosure and the GOP; Banks May Lose HAMP Money; Bondi Stands Behind Settlement; Stern Wants Fries With That

Friday, January 27th, 2012

The South Florida Law Blog loves a good burger!

We’re finally starting to catch our breath, with the substantial amount of news we’ve seen come down the pipeline in the housing market this week.

President Obama’s State of the Union, and the apparent collapse of the federal government’s settlement with the banks have been our focus this week, and rightfully so. But there’s been lots of other stories that have crossed our desk this week, some big, some small, but all important.

 

Republicans Offer Unpopular Solutions for Housing Fix

Most of our attention has been on the President this week, but we’ve also been keeping our eyes of the Republicans as well. With the Florida GOP Primary just days away, the candidates have been descending on Florida as expected. Foreclosure, which has been long absent from the GOP discussion, has become a more focal issue this week.

Unfortunately, it feels like much of the talking points have focused on the candidates blaming each other for causing the housing crisis, and less on what they plan to do to fix it.

This excellent piece in The Street details all the remaining Republicans comments on foreclosure. They all have suggested a hands-off approach, and appear to be under the misguided notion that the market will correct itself on its own. Gingrich and Paul have made one-note villains out of the Dodd-Frank Act and The Federal Reserve, respectively.

Romney’s past comments about market correction have come back to haunt him as he tries to pass himself off as sympathetic to the homeowners’ plight. Frankly we don’t feel like any of the Republican candidates are looking out for the homeowners.
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Beware of Zombie Foreclosures! Cases Dismissed Months Ago are Now Back from the Dead

Wednesday, July 13th, 2011

It’s a case of Dawn of the Dead called zombie foreclosures. In addition to the wave of Florida foreclosure cases expected once the banks get their paperwork in order and begin to foreclose on new homes again, a different wave of foreclosure cases is also ready to crest. The second wave is the zombie foreclosure wave.

The zombie cases are the ones that were dismissed without prejudice, meaning that they can be re-filed; because lawyers for the banks didn’t show up to hearings or the cases were dismissed due to legal and technical irregularities. Typically, such cases were handled by large foreclosure mills that had sloppy practices.

Now banks are getting a second shot at the cases, which will further clog the court system with even more cases. However, the backlog in the courts and the long periods of inactivity in the zombie cases does buy homeowners more time.

The future surge of cases also creates the danger that the “cookie-cutter” approach lambasted by Judge Jennifer Bailey, the head of the Miami-Dade civil court division, will once again be used by lawyers overwhelmed by the sheer number of cases to deal with. The problem is that the cookie-cutter approach was what allowed the banks and mortgage servicers to fraudulently foreclose on homeowners in the first place.

There is the potential, with the anticipated surge in foreclosure cases, for further fraud and abuse.

The irony is it could be happening with the exact same foreclosure cases that the document mills mishandled in the first place!

As David Stern’s Foreclosure Mill Closes Down, a Miami-Dade Judge Dresses Down a Foreclosure Mill

Wednesday, March 16th, 2011

 

 

On a recent Friday morning in Miami-Dade County, Judge Maxine Cohen Lando went on the record to dress down a foreclosure mill in such a fashion that it brought chills to any lawyer who is a member in good standing of the Florida Bar.

The foreclosure case was before the court because the defendant had brought a motion to dismiss the foreclosure with prejudice. The judge, having previously become annoyed with the bank and the bank’s counsel, had requested that there be an order to show cause. The judge was questioning the pleadings and wanted the foreclosure mill representing the bank to come forward and prove that they had not been involved with any inappropriate conduct.

 

 

The judge was clearly upset and said to the banks’ attorneys:

Counsel, this is all speculation. What we are here about is lawyers practicing law correctly. Lawyers reviewing the documents they submit to the court and making sure that they are correct before they are submitted. “It’s not my fault”, “this is a clerical error” and “the dog ate my homework” isn’t going to do.

The court went on to question what kind of supervision is going on at the foreclosure mills and whether the named partners were in any manner setting up the proper systems to ensure that quality work was being produced. The court specifically stated that legal work being dished out in a factory-like fashion may “be okay for you, but it is not okay for the court.”

The judge further questioned whether the attorneys gave legal counsel to their clients, stating:
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