Title Crisis

Title Crisis

By Daniel Edstrom
DTC Systems, Inc.

If you thought this was a foreclosure crisis brought about by the Mortgage Meltdown, you would be wrong.  If this were a foreclosure crisis only those in foreclosure would be the ones having problems.  And only those loans in foreclosure would be the ones having title issues and “robo-signer” issues.  I cannot say this loud enough: FORECLOSURE IS NOT THE PROBLEM.  Homeowners not making payments is not the problem.  “Freeing up” credit to stimulate lending is not the problem.  If you didn’t get a subprime loan, and yours is a 30 year fixed, you are at risk of a clouded title almost as much as anyone in foreclosure.  In fact, if you have refinanced or purchased your house from 2000 or later, you could easily have a defect in title.  Since I am not a lawyer and can only give myself legal advice, I will only discuss my own case.  And of course these are only my opinions based on my knowledge, education, training and research.  Apparently my title company thinks my title is good.  I know because somebody asked them and they said it was good.  At the end of the article I will explain why they would say that.  What they meant to say was “Everything is great because we, as a title company, are not at risk at all based on our review of your title”.

How to Corrupt the Title Records 101

We purchased the house on August 10, 2004 with 20% down.  I am self employed so I have never qualified for a decent loan.  The “lender” was listed as Central Pacific Mortgage.  Six and half years later, when I looked at the title records, I found that Central Pacific Mortgage had done an assignment to New Century Mortgage on 8/31/2004 and recorded it on 3/16/2005.  On September 7, 2005 we refinanced and it was my belief that the title company, lender and broker took care of everything.  I thought my previous loan was paid off at closing (roughly $325,000).  Nearly 7 years later when I had a reason to check the title records, I found that Ocwen Loan Servicing LLP had recorded a substitution of trustee and full reconveyance on 10/17/2005 (dated 9/19/2005).  The document stated “OCWEN LOAN SERVICING, LLC, the undersigned beneficiary, under the Deed of Trust described below, hereby substitutes or appoints Paul Neff, whose address is 1661 Worthington Road, Suite 100, West Palm Beach, Florida, 33409, as successor Trustee under the certain Deed of Trust.  In the title records, the documents should be recorded in a chain from one person or company to another person or company.  For instance, the Deed of Trust was from Dan & Teri Edstrom to Central Pacific Mortgage.  The assignment was from Central Pacific Mortgage to New Century Mortgage.  But the Substitution of Trustee contains a complete stranger who has never appeared on title – this document records a notice of a substitution of trustee to Paul Neff and that Paul Neff reconveys my loan back to me.  AND it states that Ocwen is the beneficiary.  But the chain of title shows that New Century is the beneficiary.  This is called a break in the chain of title, and our title is now defective.  But it gets worse.  Stating that Ocwen is a beneficary is a false statement.  My Deed of Trust states that only the lender can substitute a trustee.  This would be New Century because of the assignment.  Ocwen has no authority or power to substitute the trustee and this substitution is VOID (in my opinion, as is everything in this and all of my posts).   Worse, my title company sent the (approximately) $325,000 directly to Ocwen loan servicing.  Read the last sentence AGAIN.  Ocwen was NOT on title at all on September 7, 2005 and was a complete stranger.  Why is this important?  Because title company insurance policies do not cover off record transactions.  These are exceptions to most title policies that I have seen.  They don’t cover off-record transactions, yet here they are sending my $325,000 to a company that is NOT ON THE RECORD in the chain of title as my lender or beneficiary.  This means my previous loan was never paid off and Ocwen filed a fraudulent document to cover up the fact that they received $325,000 that they should never have received.  Further, the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) says that an obligation is paid if the right party is paid (my paraphrase).  The title company paid the WRONG PARTY.  My loan was never paid off.  How could I possibly have known this or discovered it on my own?  I was not an industry insider, and had no idea what was going on.  Why did my broker not catch this?  Why did my title company not speak up?  So, next I looked at who signed the document, and much to my surprise it was Scott W. Anderson.  I knew the minute I saw this name that the signature was a complete and utter forgery.  Not only that, but I knew that Ocwen attorneys had already admitted in discovery (from another case) that Scott W. Anderson does not sign these documents.  In fact there are over 30 variations of Mr. Andersons signature on thousands of documents recorded all over the country.  So there it is.  This document is a forged, counterfeit and fraudulent document that makes KNOWINGLY false statements.  And right in the upper left corner it says “When Recorded Mail To” …    You mean they actually committed forgery, counterfeiting, making false statements and they ALSO committed mail fraud?  Yes but I also believe they committed identity theft because they used our personally identifiable information for any unlawful purpose (California Penal Code 530.5 applies in my opinion).  And somebody forged Scott W. Anderson’s name.  In my opinion that would be personation.

We were never in foreclosure on the previous loan, I don’t think we were ever late making a payment (that I can recall – but it is possible we were late on a few payments), and the loan was (I had believed) paid in full.  How many crimes did I commit and how many crimes did others commit?  How many felonies can you count here?  What does this case have to do with foreclosure?  Nothing, except that I am at risk of foreclosure on this “paid off” loan from some other party that was never paid because of an off-record transaction.

There is nothing unusual about any of this, as it was a standard and practice in the industry for nearly a decade (more or less).  I know because I have seen other cases similar to this – and many forgeries.

Here is the infamous document signed by Scott W. Anderson (page 1): http://dtc-systems.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/A-OcwenSOT_and_Reconveyance_Page_1.jpeg

Here is the infamous document signed by Scott W. Anderson (page 2): http://dtc-systems.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/A-OcwenSOT_and_Reconveyance_Page_2.jpeg

I won’t even bother putting up all of the forgeries of Scott W. Anderson, just do an Internet search.  Now remember, my title company said everything was good with my title.  The reason is because Ocwen is a loan servicer and paid somebody else the money (I am sure the loan was securitized).  But guess what?  This is an off-record transaction so the title company is not liable (or so they think).

Author: dmedstrom

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