To Tell the Truth was one of my favorite TV game shows when I was a kid.
If you are not familiar with it, during each episode a panel of celebrities would try to correctly identify a contestant with a special talent. The contestant was mixed in with two impostors who pretended to be the contestant.
Now the contestant was sworn to tell the truth, but the two imposters were allowed to lie, in order to confuse the celebrity judges. At the end, after the celebrities all voted , the host would ask, “Will the real [person’s name] please stand up?”
It seems everytime I walk into court, I end up playing “To Tell The Truth”, with the banks playing the role of the contestant. Except in this version (perhaps I should call it To Tell The Truth, Foreclosure Edition) when it comes time for the real lender to ‘please stand up’, no one does!
It is as if all the ‘contestants’ are imposters. An example of this twisted game show is now playing itself out in a Palm Beach County courtroom.
In 2009, HSBC Bank brought a foreclosure action against Abby Lopez. But Bank of America has also claimed to be the lender in this case. Bank of America was the company that included email exchanges between bank representatives about who was the lender of the loan and how to proceed with the foreclosure case.
And yet, Bank of America is not named as a plaintiff in Lopez’s case, only HSBC is.
When Bank of America realized that it should be the plaintiff, it tried to request the foreclosure be changed to show the correct plaintiff. Yet they ultimately decided that the best route would be for HSBC to proceed with the foreclosure and just quit-claim the property to them after the foreclosure was complete.
(more…)
