From Bloomberg
When James Renfro had to stop making payments on his two-story fixer-upper in Parma, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland, he triggered events that were supposed to result in the forced sale of his home.
That Nov. 15 auction has been canceled because of defects in documents submitted by his loan servicer, Ally Financial Inc.’s GMAC Mortgage unit. Two affidavits about Renfro’s home were signed by Jeffrey Stephan, a GMAC employee who said in sworn depositions in Florida and Maine that he hadn’t read thousands of affidavits he’d signed.
Renfro’s case has created a showdown between GMAC and Ohio’s Attorney General Richard Cordray. Cordray has asked Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas Judge Nancy Russo not to let GMAC simply submit new documents to cure defects without consequences. He’s taken the same stand against Wells Fargo & Co., which has said it found defects in 55,000 foreclosures.
“This is just the first,” said Cordray, who filed an amicus, or friend-of-the-court, brief in the Renfro case. He argued that Russo should punish GMAC, the fourth-largest U.S. mortgage lender, for its conduct.
The judge today in Cleveland set an accelerated schedule for evidence-gathering in the case, leading up to a Feb. 17 hearing on the integrity of the loan documents. Cordray’s office plans to file a motion tomorrow asking to take part in the case and participate in so-called discovery.
Allegations of Fraud
The precedent set by the case might hasten a settlement between home lenders and the attorneys general of the 50 U.S. states, who are investigating allegations of fraud in foreclosure filings. Those being probed include San-Francisco- based Wells Fargo, which has said it will re-file foreclosure affidavits involving statements that “did not strictly adhere to the required procedures.”
In potentially thousands of cases across the U.S., judges have the power to impose “sanctions, penalties, fines and even default,” as the banks try to submit substitute paperwork to proceed with flawed foreclosures, Cordray said.
“The banks want to wish this away and pretend like it doesn’t exist,” he said.
In September, Detroit-based Ally briefly suspended foreclosures in 23 states where there is judicial review and later announced an independent survey of foreclosure proceedings that would extend nationwide. After a review, the company began reinstating proceedings in cases it said didn’t involve errors.
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