Monthly Archives: January 2011

As foreclosure cases continue to pour into courts, judges in New York are holding their fellow legal professionals accountable for their role in perpetuating foreclosure fraud. Judges in the state say foreclosure lawyers have filed often ludicrous paperwork on behalf of their clients, which Nassau County District Court judge, Scott Fairgrieve, told the New York Times, “reflects poorly on the profession as a whole.” Another judge referred to a lawyer’s filings as “ludicrous,” among other jabs. In response to lawyers filing shoddy and sometimes fabricated paperwork, New York, as well as Florida, courts are now requiring lawyers to swear that […]

With judges looking ever more critically at home foreclosures, they are reaching beyond the bankers to heap some of their most scorching criticism on the lawyers. In numerous opinions, judges have accused lawyers of processing shoddy or even fabricated paperwork in foreclosure actions when representing the banks. Judge Arthur M. Schack of New York State Supreme Court in Brooklyn has taken aim at an upstate lawyer, Steven J. Baum, referring to one filing as “incredible, outrageous, ludicrous and disingenuous.” But New York judges are also trying to take the lead in fixing the mortgage mess by leaning on the lawyers. […]

One day after a reported settlement between Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup, Wells Fargo and Ally Financial with attorneys general across the U.S. in the foreclosure epidemic, Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi released a highly critical presentation detailing legal issues surrounding the crisis. The presentation, titled “Unfair, Deceptive and Unconscionable Acts in Foreclosure Cases,” was provided by the attorney general’s economic crimes division during an early December conference of the Florida Association of Court Clerks and Comptrollers as an overview and was not representative of any specific misconduct. The comprehensive presentation was compiled in exploration of foreclosure malpractice […]

PHOENIX — An array of federal and state investigations into the way banks foreclose on delinquent homeowners has contributed to a sharp slowdown in foreclosures across the country, especially in hard-hit cities like this one. Over the last several months, some banks have been reluctant to seize homes from distressed borrowers, economists and government officials say, as they face scrutiny from regulators and the prospect of sanctions when investigations wrap up in the coming weeks and months. The Obama administration, in its most recent housing report, said foreclosure activity fell 21 percent in November from October, the biggest monthly decline […]

Stocks fell Friday after a court ruling in a foreclosure case prompted investors to pull out of bank stocks, adding to weakness after a lackluster jobs report. ven with the decline, however, the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index and the Dow Jones industrial average recorded their sixth consecutive week of advances. Wells Fargo and U.S. Bancorp lost a ruling by the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, which said the banks failed to show they held the mortgages at the time they foreclosed. The court decision is the latest on the validity of foreclosures conducted without full documentation, and the mortgage […]