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The Home Equity Theft Reporter

Welcome to The Home Equity Theft Reporter, a blog dedicated to informing the consumer public and the legal profession about Home Equity Theft issues.
By r morris

Post Frequency: 25.7/day

Last Entry: September 06, 2017 at 04:02:00

Indiana AG: Loan Modification Outfit, Out-Of-State Attorney Illegally Peddled Loan Modification Services To State Homeowners

Posted on December 11, 2010
In Evansville, Indiana, the Evansville Courier & Press reports:Indiana Attorney General Greg Zoeller personally filed a lawsuit in Vanderburgh Circuit Court [] claiming a for-profit foreclosure consulting company violated state consumer protection law...

South Florida Foreclosure Mill Files Lawsuit On Behalf Of Lender Against Woman For Foreclosure On Home She Sold In 1994

Posted on December 11, 2010
The South Florida Sun Sentinel reports:Cathy Hammers was abruptly awakened by a continuous loud banging on the front door of her Virginia home the Saturday night after Thanksgiving. She was then served foreclosure papers by Texas-based Nationstar Mortgage and the Fort Lauderdale law firm of Marshall Watson on a Port St...

ACLU Jumps Into Robosigner Fray; Files Motion To Reverse Lower Court Injunction Prohibiting Posting, Distributing Of Depositions On YouTube

Posted on December 10, 2010
In Central Florida, the Sarasota Herald Tribune reports:The ACLU of Florida filed a motion [] appealing Sarasota Judge Rick DeFuria's decision not to allow a law firm to put depositions of so-called ?foreclosure robo-signers? on its web site.The motion in Florida's Second District Court of Appeal asked the court to reverse an injunction directing Christopher Forrest and The Forrest Law Firm, of

Florida Retiree Dodges House Payments For 25 Years; Holds Off Foreclosing Lenders By Tying Them In Legal Knots

Posted on December 10, 2010
In Okeechobee County, Florida, The Wall Street Journal reports:Patsy Campbell could tell you a thing or two about fighting foreclosure. She's been fighting hers for 25 years. The 71-year-old retired insurance saleswoman has been living in her house, a two-story on a half acre in a tidy middle-class neighborhood here in central Florida, since 1978...

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Alleged Foreclosure Fraudulent Document Manufacturing Racket Now Faces Charges Of Federal Securities Law Violations; Suit Seeks Class Action Status

Posted on November 26, 2010
The law firm Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd LLP announces:Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd LLP (?Robbins Geller?) [...] announced that a class action has been commenced on behalf of an institutional investor in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida on behalf of purchasers of the common stock of Lender Processing Services, Inc...

BofA Facing Doom By Countrywide Ticking Time Bomb?

Posted on November 26, 2010
Attorney Abigail Field writes in AOL's Daily Finance:Testimony in a New Jersey foreclosure case decided last week may spell big trouble for Bank of America. If what one bank employee said on the stand proves to be accurate, paperwork problems it acquired when it purchased the failing mortgage provider Countrywide in 2008 could leave BofA on the hook for billions of dollars...

Do-It-Yourself Mortgage Cancellation Racket A New Foreclosure Avoidance Technique?

Posted on November 26, 2010
In Atlanta, Georgia, WSB-TV Channel 2 reports:A Channel 2 Action News Investigation has uncovered a new scheme homeowners are using to avoid foreclosure. It involves canceling their own mortgage, and some homeowners told Investigative Reporter Jodie Fleischer it?s working...

Minnesota AG Files Unrelated Suits Charging Two Out-Of-State Outfits With Running Illegal Upfront Fee Loan Modification Rackets

Posted on November 26, 2010
In Hennepin County, Minnesota, the Star Tribune reports:Minnesota Attorney General Lori Swanson filed lawsuits Wednesday against two out-of-state firms that she says are taking advantage of people in or near foreclosure who seek mortgage modifications...

Trial To Move Forward For Attorney Accused Of Hijacking Vacant Home In Foreclosure, Pocketing Rent From Unwitting Tenant

Posted on November 25, 2010
In Allegan, Michigan, The Allegan County News reports:Allegan attorney John Watts has been ordered to stand trial on all the charges against him. Watts, 65, was in Allegan County District Court Friday, Nov. 19, for a preliminary hearing before visiting Judge Richard A...

'Ike' Victim Sues Loan Servicer Claiming Improper Withholding Of Insurance Proceeds Makes It Difficult To Complete Repairs To Hurricane-Damaged Home

Posted on November 25, 2010
In Galveston, Texas, The Southeast Texas Record reports:Shirley Peebles seeks to recover from Green Tree Servicing insurance funds she claims are necessary for repairs to her property in Bacliff. Peebles and Green Tree Servicing were issued a check in the amount of $9,759 after Hurricane Ike inflicted damage to the complainant's property, according to a lawsuit filed Nov...

NH Attorney Peddling Loan Modifications Abandons Clients After Regulator Issues Cease & Desist Order

Posted on November 25, 2010
In Concord, New Hampshire, the Concord Monitor reports:Closed firm fulfilled duties, he says. The website is still up, but the phone line has been cut off. Dan Dargon's law firm no longer exists. Not all of Dargon's clients got the memo, however. A month after the Dargon Law Firm shut its doors amid an investigation by the state into its loan modification practices, clients who say they were

Nevada Regulator Clips Loan Modification Outfits Out Of $110K In Fines, Probe Costs In Unrelated Cease & Desist Orders

Posted on November 25, 2010
In Carson City, Nevada, the Las Vegas Sun reports:A Las Vegas loan modification and foreclosure consulting business has been fined $50,000 by the state for mishandling the money of homeowners. The state Division of Mortgage Lending also issued a closure order against U...

Recent Bankruptcy Court Ruling Provides Evidence Supporting View That Many Mortgage Securitizations Are Invalid

Posted on November 24, 2010
Georgetown University Associate Professor of Law (and witness testifying in November 6, 2010 Congressional hearings on "Problems In Mortgage Servicing From Modification To Foreclosure") Adam J. Levitin writes in Credit Slips:Last week the US Bankruptcy Court for the District of New Jersey issued an opinion in a case captioned Kemp v...

Central Florida Sale Leaseback Peddler Linked To 50 Ripoff Deals Gets 10 Years On Racketeering Charge; Targeted Cash-Strapped, High-Equity Homeowners

Posted on November 24, 2010
In Orlando, Florida, the Orlando Sentinel reports:One after another, the victims explained the scheme in court: They needed loans. John Pavao reached out to them and offered help. They signed some documents. And the next thing they knew, they were losing their homes...

Colorado Judge Slams Brakes On Foreclosure As Homeowner Claims Bank "Showed Up With A Forged Document" To Rule 120 Hearing In Attempt To Take Home

Posted on November 24, 2010
In Crestone, Colorado, Boulder Weekly reports on the successful effort of homeowner Wooddora Eisenhauer, 70, to get a judge at a Rule 120 hearing to slam the brakes on the bank some believe is the home lending industry's 'stagecoach to hell' - Wells Fargo, and an ostensibly illegal foreclosure attempt:The third and current foreclosure involves her primary residence, a 650-square-foot, one-bedroom

Countrywide Comes Clean, Admits Screw-Up In Failure To Convey Promissory Notes Into Mtg Securitization Trust; Says It Was Customary To Keep Possession

Posted on November 23, 2010
Naked Capitalism reports:Testimony in a New Jersey bankruptcy court case provides proof of the scenario we?ve depicted on this blog since September, namely, that subprime originators, starting sometime in the 2004-2005 timeframe, if not earlier, stopped conveying note (the borrower IOU) to mortgage securitization trust as stipulated in the pooling and servicing agreement...

NY Trial Judge: Buffalo-Based Foreclosure Mill Law Firm's Actions "A Dereliction Of Professional Responsibility!"

Posted on November 23, 2010
In Suffolk County, New York, State Supreme Court Justice Melvyn Tanenbaum has recently been giving the notorious, Buffalo-based foreclosure mill law Steven J. Baum, P.C. a real hammering.Over the last month and a half or so, Justice Tanenbaum has denied a request to proceed with foreclosure sales in thirty (30) of Baum's cases...

Loan Servicer Pockets Three Months Of Loan Modification Payments, Then Forecloses Home Out From Under Unwitting Borrower Anyway

Posted on November 23, 2010
In Ceres, California, KXTV-TV Channel 10 reports:After struggling for more than a year to get their house payments reduced, Carol Ann Rangel received formal notification from Citimortgage in May that her family had been approved for a loan modification...

Aggressive Lobbying Campaign Targeting Congress For Passage Of "Great MERS Whitewash Bill" In Full Swing

Posted on November 22, 2010
The Washington Post reports:The financial services industry has launched an aggressive campaign on Capitol Hill to bolster the legality of the way companies have turned mortgages into securities and traded them across the globe in recent years.The companies have opened wide their wallets for lobbying and are flying top executives to Washington for one-on-one meetings with lawmakers...

NJ Federal Judge Upholds Ruling Awarding $690K To Homeowner Screwed Out Of $116K In Sale Leaseback Scam; OK's Add'l $34K For Victims' Attorney Fees

Posted on November 22, 2010
A January, 2010 ruling by a U.S. Bankruptcy Court judge (O'Brien v. Cleveland (In re O'Brien), 423 B.R. 477 (Bankr. D.N.J. 2010)) slamming a peddler of a sale leaseback, foreclosure rescue scam who stripped the home equity from a financially strapped homeowner was affirmed in all aspects earlier this month by District Judge Garrett E...

Elderly Chicago Woman Recovers Home Of 40 Years Swindled In Sale Leaseback Foreclosure Rescue Scam; Disgraced Peddler Faces No Criminal Charges

Posted on November 22, 2010
In Chicago, Illinois, WLS-TV Channel 7 reports:A woman who nearly lost her South Side residence in a mortgage rescue scheme gets to keep the home she has lived in for the last 40 years. The man who operated the mortgage company is now banned from working in the mortgage business in Illinois for life...

NY Appellate Court Tells Trial Judge: Cancelling Mortgage, Note Because Of Lender's "Repugnant, Shocking & Repulsive" Conduct Goes A Bit Too Far

Posted on November 22, 2010
The New York Law Journal reports:A judge who blasted a lender's "repugnant, shocking and repulsive" conduct in trying to foreclose on a Long Island home exceeded his authority when he canceled the mortgage on the property, a state appeals court has ruled...

Clueless Robosigner Backpeddles From Statements Made In Videotaped Deposition; Now Claims To Have Known Significance Of Documents He Cranked Out

Posted on November 22, 2010
In Central Florida, a recent ABC Action News story on foreclosure document mill Nationwide Title Clearing had this excerpt regarding company employee Bryan Bly, a prolific robosigner who distinguished himself recently in a videotaped deposition in which he admitted that he didn't have a clue as to the significance of the paperwork he was cranking out:In a videotaped deposition earlier this month,

Compensation Fund Proposal An Attempt To Buy Off State AGs, Keep Them From "Digging Deeper & Uncovering More Rot In The Mortgage System": Legal Expert

Posted on November 21, 2010
Buried in a recent New York Times story on the ongoing foreclosure scandal is this excerpt describing one legal expert's view of the banking industry's latest attempt to sweep their wrongdoing under the rug:For 18 months, the Obama administration has promoted modifications that would keep families in their homes over foreclosures that would kick them out...

RICO Suits May Pose Big Problem For Banks In Robosigner Scandal As Class Actions Begin To Pile Up

Posted on November 21, 2010
Bloomberg News reports:Foreclosure-fraud class action lawsuits are starting to pile up against major banks across the U.S., threatening a besieged industry with billions more in potential losses.***The class actions, which could be expanded nationally, seek damages for homeowners whose properties were illegally foreclosed upon by banks using fraudulent documents...

Sewer Service, Inflated Process Server Billings A Possibility For Recent Foreclosed Home In Which Dead Body Was Discovered In Garage

Posted on November 21, 2010
In Cape Canaveral, Florida, WESH-TV Channel 2 reports:Authorities have not yet been able to positively identify a body that was found in a foreclosed Brevard County townhome, but the remains are believed to be that of the owner, Kathryn Norris.Court records paint a muddy picture of a foreclosure case that moved quickly with little regard for what may have happened to Norris...

Disbarred Attorney Cops Plea To Ripping Off Clients, Lenders; $128K Score In Owner Finance Scam Among Swindles

Posted on November 21, 2010
From the Office of the U.S. Attorney (Greenbelt, Maryland):Frank P. Jenkins II, age 45, of LaPlata, Maryland, pleaded guilty [last week] to wire fraud and mail fraud in connection with a scheme to defraud clients of his law practice and lenders in real estate transactions...

R/E Scammer Dodges Restitution Order; Judge Says Ripoffs Too Complex To Figure Out Who Gets What; "Owner-Finance" Sellers Among Those Left Holding Bag

Posted on November 21, 2010
In Marco Island, Florida, the Marco Eagle reports:A 64-year-old Marco Island businessman serving 2� years in a federal prison for mortgage fraud won?t have to pay restitution to his victims ? unless they sue and win. U.S. District Judge John Steele ruled [] after Chief Assistant U...

Court Tacks $55K In Attorney Fees Onto $41K Damage Award Against Home Contractor Found Liable For Substandard Work

Posted on November 20, 2010
In Jefferson County, Texas, The Southeast Texas Record reports:A Jefferson County jury recently found that a contractor failed to honor his agreement with local resident Fred Pouncy, awarding the man $41,270 in damages and his attorney, David W. Starnes, an additional $55,000...

TX Couple Sue To Recover Home Sold Out From Under Them In F'closure; Say Lender's Broken Loan Mod Promises Violate State Deceptive Trade Practices Act

Posted on November 20, 2010
In Jefferson County, Texas, The Southeast Texas Record reports:In hopes [to] keep the bank from taking their home, Groves residents Keith and Julia Keen have filed suit against Sun Trust Mortgage. [...] In April, the Keens could no longer afford to pay their mortgage and contacted U...

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