Foreclosure Mills Continue Down the Wide Path of Destruction

Foreclosure Mills Continue Down the Wide Path of Destruction

By Daniel Edstrom
DTC Systems, Inc.

We have already talked about the foreclosure mills the Law Offices of David J. Stern PA and Ben-Ezra & Katz PA and NDEx West (owned by Dolan Media) with its doppelgänger foreclosure mill law firm, Barrett Daffin Frappier Turner & Engle.  Now we turn our attention to Shapiro & Burson apparently out of Maryland.  As stated on livinglies.wordpress.com (and originally from 4closurefraud.org), The Baltimore Sun’s Jamie Smith Hopkins reports that 1,000 or more Maryland deeds are likely forgeries that were created by a foreclosure mill (the law firm of Shapiro & Burson).  It turns out that last year two other law firms in Maryland admitted they had forged signatures on foreclosure documents in a similar manner (Bierman Geesing & Ward along with Covahey Boozer Devan and Dore).  I have already shown that NDEx West (owned by Dolan Media) along with Barrett Daffin Frappier Turner & Engle does the same thing.  This is very easy to show for just about any foreclosure mill.  Here is how.  Just go down to the recorders office and pull up 20 documents in each of the last 3 or 4 years naming your favorite foreclosure mill (NDEx West or whoever).  The chances of you not finding one forgery are probably close to 0%.  The chances of you finding multiple forgeries is very high (99%+).

So who cares, these homeowners aren’t paying and don’t deserve to stay in their homes (I keep hearing this over and over again by those who have no idea what they are talking about).  OK so how many of those homeowners have done the following:

1. Committed forgery
2. Created a counterfeit document
3. Uttered a fraudulent document (published a fraudulent document)
4. Committed wire fraud (by transmitting any fraudulent document electronically)
5. Committed mail fraud (by sending any fraudulent document through the US mail)
6. Committed securities fraud (remember these loans for the most part are the collateral used in the offer and sale of securities)
7. Been involved in Rackateering (by committing any two of the acts above in a 10 year period)
8. Committed fraud upon the court (by submitting fraudulent documents to any court of law)
9. Committed bankruptcy fraud (by submitting fraudulent documents to any bankruptcy court)
10. Committed felony identity theft
11. Committed notary fraud
12. Slander of title

Most of the above items are felonies.  Wire fraud carries up to a 20 year prison sentence.  This is what the banks and foreclosure mills do every single day as a standard and practice!  Now see if you think we have a major problem in our country.  Now multiply the number of felonies (let’s just say 5) by the number of foreclosures procesed by your favorite foreclosure mill.  NDEx West processed 50,000 foreclosure files in a 3 month period so I will use that as an example.  So, 50,000 times 5 = 250,000 felonies in a 3 month period.  Now that is a criminal enterprise beyond compare.  Thank you Dolan Media for acquiring such a profitable enterprise.  I am sure your investors must be very proud.

Is it possible that NDEx West is not achieving at least one felony per foreclosure filing?  Sure, but I doubt it based on their business model, and on their (lack of) internal controls as well as who their clients are, how these clients have completely and utterly failed to perfect title on securitized “loans”, and how they actually fabricate assignments to themselves in order to feign perfecting the titles to foreclosure properties.  And lets not forget that in securitization, the servicers and trustees are required and obligated to make the payments whether or not they receive them from the homeowner.  Since the Uniform Commercial Code 3-602(a) says the following, it is my opinion that very few of these loans are in default anyway:

an instrument is paid to the extent payment is made (i) by or on behalf of a party obliged to pay the instrument, and (ii) to a person entitled to enforce the instrument.  To the extent of the payment, the obligation of the party obliged to pay the instrument is discharged

So if the “creditor” has been paid, and the obligation to make the payment has been discharged, who exactly is foreclosing?  This is not how loans used to work back when a bank lent the money and the bank held the paper.  Once Wall Street got involved, they created extremely complex financial engineering whereby they used numerous mechanisms to make sure the ones entitled to the payment received the payment no matter what.  They actually keep separate accounting (second sets of books) on what the payments actually are – and they NEVER show these to the homeowner or to any court of law.  They thrive on concealing, misrepresenting and failing to disclose material information.

Let’s not forget to mention 4closurefraud.org’s other information – that in one foreclosure case the Florida Default Law Group and JP Morgan Chase submitted two different “original” wet ink notes in the same case.  One submitted by Ms. Ashleigh Politano, Esq. and the other by Tamara M. Walters, Esq.  This corraborates what I have been stating – that the national banks, the foreclosure mills and the foreclosure mill law firms have no internal controls in place and the software they used for automated workflow is antiquated and out of date.  This wouldn’t be a problem if they actually had the correct loan paperwork complexted, but in the world where these documents are fabricated specifically for foreclosures and specifically for use in a court case, this becomes problematic.  There are are many instances of duplicate notes or assignments, including in my own case, in Jim Macklin’s case and in Brian Davies case, to name but a few.

Author: dmedstrom

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