Electronic Housing Wasteland: Robo-Signing Computers Stamping Mortgage Documents By The Thousands

Bloomberg - Bryan Bly is a pen-wielding “robo- signer” at Nationwide Title Clearing Inc., inking his name on an average 5,000 mortgage documents a day for companies such as Citigroup Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co.

Those are just the ones that cross his desk.

Nationwide Title employs a computer system that automatically inserts a copy of Bly’s signature on thousands of digital files that he never sees. The system even affixes an electronic notary seal.

“The problem with the way these documents are created isn’t because a computer is used,” said Gloria Einstein, a legal aid attorney in Green Cove Springs, Florida, who deposed Bly in a case in which her client faces foreclosure by a unit of Deutsche Bank AG. “It’s because an enterprise has decided to use a computer to create a system where nobody is responsible for the information and the decisions.”

The rush to securitize more than $4 trillion of mortgages as U.S. home sales peaked in 2005 and 2006 inundated loan servicers and contractors like Palm Harbor, Florida-based Nationwide Title that help them handle paperwork. Lawsuits fighting some of the more than 4 million foreclosures since then have exposed sloppy recordkeeping and raised questions about the validity of documents used to seize properties.

Signatures Draw Scrutiny

Bly is just one of more than a dozen robo-signers deposed in the past two years by lawyers for borrowers seeking to block foreclosures. Spurred by descriptions in depositions of employees signing thousands of affidavits a week without checking their accuracy as legally required, the attorneys general in all 50 states last month opened an investigation into whether banks and loan servicers used faulty documents or improper practices to foreclose.

Nationwide Title, which has about 175 employees, provides document imaging, tracking, retrieval, recording and processing on bulk loan transfers for lenders, servicers and investors. It’s the largest third-party processor of mortgage assignments, handling more than 350,000 last year, Senior Vice President Jeremy Pomerantz said in a telephone interview. The company also prepares lien releases, which show that a mortgage has been paid off by the borrower.

Continue reading at Bloomberg...

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Check this out:

• BOMBSHELL: Check Out This Industry Catalog And Price Sheet For FABRICATED Foreclosure Documents

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Fed Officials Raises Doubts Over New $600B Program

WASHINGTON — A Federal Reserve official with close ties to Chairman Ben Bernanke expressed doubts Monday about whether the Fed's new $600 billion bond-purchase program would succeed in boosting the economy.

Kevin Warsh, a Fed governor, also warned of "significant risks" associated with the program, including the potential for triggering excessive inflation later on.

But Warsh said he doubted the program will have "significant" or "durable benefits" for the economy. He made the comments in a speech to the annual meeting of the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association in New York.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/08/fed-officials-raises-doub_n_780612.html

Comments

[DailyBail]

LONDON (MarketWatch) — Dublin doesn’t need Europe’s cash — at least not yet — but the Irish government is under increasing pressure to accept a bailout due to growing fears about the viability of the nation’s troubled banking sector and risks the debt crisis could spread, economists said.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/irish-bailout-pressure-aimed-at-saving-periphery-2010-11-15

[DailyBail]

Fed Officials Raises Doubts Over New $600B Program

WASHINGTON — A Federal Reserve official with close ties to Chairman Ben Bernanke expressed doubts Monday about whether the Fed's new $600 billion bond-purchase program would succeed in boosting the economy.

Kevin Warsh, a Fed governor, also warned of "significant risks" associated with the program, including the potential for triggering excessive inflation later on.

But Warsh said he doubted the program will have "significant" or "durable benefits" for the economy. He made the comments in a speech to the annual meeting of the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association in New York.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/08/fed-officials-raises-doub_n_780612.html

[DailyBail]

Investors Funding Medical Malpractice, Divorce Lawsuits

The loans are propelling large and prominent cases. Lenders including Counsel Financial, a Buffalo company financed by Citigroup, provided $35 million for the lawsuits brought by ground zero workers that were settled tentatively in June for $712.5 million. The lenders earned about $11 million.

Most investments are in the smaller cases that fill court dockets. Ardec Funding, a New York lender backed by a hedge fund, lent $45,000 in June to a Manhattan lawyer hired by the parents of a baby brain-damaged at birth. The lawyer hired two doctors, a physical therapist and an economist to testify at a July trial. The jury awarded the baby $510,000. Ardec is collecting interest at an annual rate of 24 percent, or $900 a month, until the award is paid.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/15/investors-funding-medical-malpractice-divorce-lawsuits-_n_783477.html

[DailyBail]

Bernie Madoff Auction Bidding Reaches Fever Pitch

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/14/bernard-madoff-auction_n_783301.html

[DailyBail]

Federal Reserve's Quantitative Easing Gets Slammed By Conservatives, Investors

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/15/quantitative-easing_n_783470.html

[Dr. Pitchfork]

All this talk of an IMF bailout for Ireland could actually push them into needing one where they otherwise wouldn't. After all, they've already enacted austerity programs, and in any case they can always punish the bondholders if push comes to shove.... Wait. You don't think...? Surely this isn't intentional? Makes you wonder because there is enormous pressure in Ireland to punish bondholders. Americans don't even know what a bank bondholder is, but in Ireland there are letters to the editor about them all the time. Worth watching this one.

[DailyBail]

so i get your point...you're saying the international bank bondholders are getting scared by all the talk about punishing creditors so they've started a campaign from europe to force a bailout upon ireland that will pay creditors (themselves) 100 cents on the dollar...

fucking bastards...

[Dr. Pitchfork]

Yeah, sorry. I was surprised by the IMF bailout of Ireland talk. We know things are screwed, but I can't imagine Ireland conceding to it. Neither the gov nor the people. For one thing, they don't need it! They're funded through part of next year, and they can always start whacking bondholders. (Yikes!) For another, there's just way too much pride and historical baggage wrapped up in it. Ireland was a colony completely controlled by Britain less than 90 years ago. The Cetlic Tiger gave the Irish a whole new sense of themselves as a nation and a people -- kind of like the theme song to the Jeffersons. To take an IMF bailout would again reduce them to 2nd world status. I can't see that happening.

So yeah, I think it's _possible_ that people are talking up an IMF bailout in order to make headlines which will either push them into the hands of the IMF, or force Cowen and Lenihan to stop all the talk of bondholder haircuts (what little talk there has been). Maybe it's European banks that are scared. I just don't know. But it's mad fishy if you ask me.

[DailyBail]

a decade of bailouts lie ahead...