Breaking News: Bank of America to halt foreclosures in 23 states because of document problems

[1776Forever]

Source: AP/Washington Post

By ALAN ZIBEL
The Associated Press
Friday, October 1, 2010; 5:44 PM

WASHINGTON -- Bank of America is delaying foreclosures in 23 states as it examines whether it rushed the foreclosure process for thousands of homeowners without reading the documents.

Bank of America isn't able to estimate how many homeowners' cases will be affected, Dan Frahm, a spokesman for the Charlotte, N.C.-based bank, said Friday.

The move adds the nation's largest bank to a growing list of mortgage companies whose employees signed documents in foreclosure cases without verifying the information in them.

Two other companies, Ally Financial Inc.'s GMAC Mortgage unit and JPMorgan Chase, have halted tens of thousands of foreclosure cases after similar problems became public

(More at link)

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/01/AR2010100105392.html?hpid%3Dtopnews&sub=AR

[Hannah Bell]

1. yay!

[TexasObserver]

2. recommend

[Oceansaway]

3. K&R...n/t

[DCBob]

4. Nice!! That's one way to stop them.

this will give homeowners some time to work things out.

[Xipe Totec]

5. Problems? Nice euphemism for caught red handed.

[aquart]

8. I was about to guess that the liability must be awesome.

[Pab Sungenis]

6. Hallelujah! This may have just saved our house!

When I was socked with $250,000.00 in medical bills and ended up unemployed for 9 months due to convalescence, we fell a couple payments behind. My lawyer filed modification paperwork with BOA, who had just bought the mortgage from Countrywide. Two days after they sent him a fresh sheaf of documents, "Bank of New York Mellon" filed foreclosure proceedings. They didn't even inform us or our attorney of the court date and we were foreclosed upon by summary judgment since we didn't show.

We've been trying to work with them since that time, and sheriff's sales have been postponed for 14 consecutive months at BOA's request. We've refiled our modification paperwork NINE times and they seem to keep losing it. Then we get calls from their collection department asking why we didn't pay last month. ("Because you foreclosed!" but they don't want to hear it and keep harassing.)

Now I know how we wound up in this situation. This woman, who signed off on our foreclosure pretending to be from BONY Mellon, signed off without seeing that we were in process of working with them.

This may have just saved our house. I wonder if we have any recourse.

[aquart]

9. I hope this saves your house and many many others.

[dixiegrrrrl]

13. You may be able to save your house.

The whole scam is listed here in Grayson's video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqnHLDeedVg&feature=player_embedded

first step is to watch it and learn.

Realize that BOA sold your mortgage to Fannie Mae ( and mine) and that sale was registered via MERS Electronic recording systems ( explained in the video). But the NOTE has probably been destroyed.
No note, no foreclosure in 45 states that have judicial foreclosure ( lenders have to go into court to foreclose).
Even non-judicial states have options to fight foreclosure.

You Must read this blog which has tons of links, information about the fraud and what you can do.

http://4closurefraud.org/

[Ozymanithrax]

7. Perhaps all these people that signed official documents fraudulently..

should be charged with making a false official statement.

[Ikonoklast]

10. They have no legal standing, they don't own the note.

You watch, there is going to be a tidal wave of lawsuits against all these lenders...THEY DON'T OWN THE PAPER.

[Nostradammit]

16. Bingo!

Imagine if everyone in the country were able to walk away from their mortgages
free and clear because of the shell game the banks have been playing with the paper.

It would solve every single one of our economic problems and the banksters would be
left holding a big bag of shit.

What a happy thought that is.

[ProSense]

11. 7 major lenders ordered to review foreclosure procedures

7 major lenders ordered to review foreclosure procedures

By Ariana Eunjung Cha
Washington Post Staff Writer

A top federal bank regulator said Thursday that he has directed seven of the nation's largest lenders to review their foreclosure processes after learning about the widespread mishandling of homeowner evictions by the industry.

John Walsh, acting director of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, told lawmakers during a hearing on the financial regulatory overhaul enacted this summer that some lenders "clearly had deficiencies" in their system for foreclosures.

The banks contacted by regulators include J.P. Morgan Chase, which announced Wednesday that it was freezing 56,000 foreclosures after finding errors in its preparation of documents, according to OCC spokesman Kevin Mukri. Other lenders contacted include Bank of America, Citibank, HSBC, PNC Bank, U.S. Bank and Wells Fargo.

more

[lunatica]

12. GMAC has the exact same problem

I just wrote them to ask for the Mortgage Note. If they don't have it they can't foreclose. And I'll be damned if I keep paying a mortgage that goes straight into a black hole to never be seen again.

[underpants]

14. This is the same problem that "Produce the Note" exposed, isn't it?

:shrug:

[necso]

15. I'd like to quote another paragraph,

but I don't want to go over the limit; so I'll use a shortened form as a guide to the paragraph of interest. (It's the second paragraph from the last... depending on how you count it.)

"In some states... By contrast, the 23 states... use a lengthy court process. They require documents... including who owns it." {bolding mine}

My take is that these financial institutions are putting on a show of concern about committing fraud upon the courts, and aren't particularly concerned about committing fraud upon the homeowners (or most other (potentially) defrauded parties).

[corkhead]

17. here is a list of the 23 states:

In some states, lenders can foreclose quickly on delinquent mortgage borrowers. By contrast, the 23 states in which Bank of America is delaying foreclosures use a lengthy court process. They require documents to verify information on the mortgage, including who owns it.

Those states are:

Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Vermont and Wisconsin.

[jimlup]

18. unfortunately Michigan isn't on the list

[Le Taz Hot]

19. Neither is California

and we're hurtin' bad here. :wtf: