Matt Weidner – Fighting For The American People

Posts Tagged ‘florida attorney general bill mccollum’

As America and now the world struggles to come to grips with the breadth and magnitude of Foreclosuregate, I urge everyone to read the very important letter below.  This should help everyone to understand just what we are dealing with. After you read this indictment of our current foreclosure system, read the attachment below which are the letters Florida Attorney General just sent out to lenders across this country…it illustrates the terrible disconnect we now suffer…..

From a title standpoint the false affidavits and assignments are serious indictments, which when followed up the chain will reveal the fact that a horrible disconnect has happened to the usual, well balanced, real party in interest v. real party in interest relationship in contract relations. The foreclosing entities are disconnected proxies who feel no direct responsibility to the faceless horde of investors who own the loan. The proxies failure to disclose the real party in interest for whom they purport to act fails the legal chain of title needed at the get go. And it only gets worse as the case progresses leaving a broken chain and a dark cloud on title in the record The drive to cut corners and take short cuts with the law cannot be ignored by a thinly financed insurance industry whose low rates were adopted years before the advent of the securitized/MERS mortgage device.

It’s not so ironic that the business model employed now to enforce these mortgages is as sloppy in execution as the one that manufactured and sold these mortgages in the first place – and that is assuming the best of intentions.

Problem is, that title law does not like sloppy, nor should it insure it. Nor can it, really.

Title Integrity was risked, without risk premium, in the creation of these troublesome devices, then doubled down by insuring their horrible offspring.

And now we are beginning to see this downstream folly in action. The poorly written Taylor decision is a case in point.

Erroneous court decisions, and their failure to properly apply the law litter the vast landscape of our legal history. Reversals of our U.S. Supreme Court, by itself, years or decades later, is proof.

We in the world of transactional/title law and insurance follow a different tune than the drumbeat of the latest questionable appellate decision. We know that the vast majority of the judges sitting on benches never closed a real estate transaction nor searched and put together a title chain, nor could they spot a cloud or defect. They certainly don’t know the difference between insurable versus marketable title.

But the market does.

We deal in a delicate and extremely conservative area of the law developed over nearly a 1,000 years of practice, process and tradition; We carry the history and weight of that developed law and its solid logic into the most important aspect of any transaction – the fundamental bedrock assumption underpinning its successful completion: clear and marketable title.

Every buyer presumes it.

But it does not exist in the context of these mass foreclosures, and remains in question as to those loans still out there, not yet in default.

So we do not accept bad or illogical decisions of courts if it conflicts with our learned perception of the law and acceptance of a risk assessment. We cannot be forced to write title.

But if we don’t write title most of the modern real estate world and our economic system will grind down to a halt.

Taylor’s presence now as bad precedent gives no shelter or safe harbor for any title underwriting decisions foolishly based on it. Instead it stands out like a sore thumb, a poster boy for a decision based on expediency not law or logic.

And the recent moratorium on foreclosure should be viewed as the smoke coming from a very serious fire.

Greg Clark
Founder, JEDTI
Jurists Engaged in Defending Title Integrity

McCollum-Foreclosure-Fraud-Letters-to-Banksters

National, regional and local press are reporting the serious issues relating to Foreclosure Fraud nearly every day now.  A handful of honest judge with integrity are taking notice of the fraud in the foreclosure process and holding the lawyers and their clients to task.  A ranking member of the United States Congress has written a letter to the Chief Justice asking for a moratorium on foreclosures. And yet in spite of all of this, across this state, oftentimes in secret courtrooms that are hidden from the public using evidence and information that is hidden from the scrutiny of press or public view, judges will be signing thousands of foreclosure judgments.

I was in one of those secret Kafka-esque courtrooms in Tampa yesterday.  I made the speech I just made to the judge as he was in the middle of robo signing hundreds of judgments.  He seemed annoyed at my presence in the courtroom and my suggestion that there was anything at all wrong with the process.  We all know this is horribly wrong and like a sick patient that ignores his symptoms before it’s too late, the longer we allow this to play out, the worse the day of reckoning will be.  One of my motivations early on was to bring attention to this crisis in the hopes that officials would step up and stop this madness.  Our Attorney General is to be commended for taking the lead in this crisis…we can only hope that the Office of Attorney General maintains the integrity necessary to give these investigations their full force and impact.

In 2008, the Florida Legislature passed the Foreclosure Fraud Rescue Act, a law which was intended to protect Floridans from unscrupulous con artists who take money from homeowners and promise they can get a modification of the homeowner’s mortgage.  The full text of the bill can be found here.  Short and simply, any person or company who takes a fee from a homeowner for the promise or expectation of getting that homeowner’s mortgage modified are subject to the following:

A person who violates any provision of this section commits an unfair and deceptive trade practice as defined in part II of this chapter. Violators are subject to the penalties and remedies provided in part II of this chapter, including a monetary penalty not to exceed $15,000 per violation.

The Florida Legislature followed this law up with new legislation in the 2009 Legislative Session that placed further regulations on mortgage modification companies in Florida.  The full text of this law can be found here.  This law made changes to the mortgage brokering and lending statute and requires, among other things, that modification companies be licensed as mortgage brokers.

The laws and legislative intent are good; the problem is not nearly enough is being done to enforce these laws and protect consumers.  In the last several weeks, I’ve come across mortgage modification scams operating phone banks and engaging in the aggressive solicitations the legislature intended to prevent. I’ve dutifully investigators in the Florida Attorney General’s Office, but was recently disturbed to learn that the AG’s office is no longer aggressively pursuing mortgage rescue fraud companies….in two cases in particular, I had contacted the companies and had them promise me that they could save my home from foreclosure….no need to hire an attorney….just send them money.

I contacted the AG’s office with names, details and phone numbers…I had the names and information about the representatives that were aggressively contacting me.  It drove me nuts to hear the phone banks operating in the background because I knew their operators were taking advantage of consumers…I hoped that the public servants would take their jobs seriously and take action on the complaints…I’m disappointed to report that I got very little response from the investigators…In fact, the AG’s office advised me that they were no longer taking the lead in such investigations….wow, what a letdown….

The AG’s office still contains a link on their website and I strongly encourage consumers to contact the AG’s office at 1-866-9-NO-SCAM to report mortgage rescue scams….who knows if it will do any good….but if nothing else, take some time to ask them why consumers continue to get ripped off and ask them why the Attorney General doesn’t seem to care.