Oppenheim Law’s South Florida Law Blog shares a letter Roy Oppenheim wrote in response to an editorial piece published on October 9th called The Politics of Foreclosure:
Your editorial “The Politics of Foreclosure” (October 9) misses a number of significant legal as well as macro economic issues. In fact the editorial’s latent sarcasm (i.e., “the affidavit was supposed to be signed by the nameless, faceless employee in the back office who reviewed the file, not the other nameless, faceless employee who sits in the front”), suggests a clear lack of respect for (i) the protections afforded to all of us by the United States Constitution, (ii) State Rights and (iii) how the real property recordation systems throughout the US have played a critical role in capital formation for 150 years.
As a real estate attorney in Florida who previously practiced on Wall Street, I personally know of countless cases where the bank sues the wrong homeowner for foreclosure or where two banks claim to own the same mortgage. It seems that you are significantly discounting the importance of procedural due process that requires that an affidavit be sworn under oath and that an individual has personal knowledge of the amounts owed by a borrower. Further, you are making undue light of notary fraud and perjury (both criminal acts) when an individual attests to another’s signature with knowledge that such attestation is false. Such conduct is not only a violation of state law but also of various federal laws such as The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, violations under the Federal Trade Commission for Unfair and Deceptive Trade Practices, mail fraud, wire fraud, and possibly racketeering. These “mistakes” are not mere technical issues but go to the core of our legal system.
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