HomeOwners for Better Building - BusinessWeek: Mortgage Fraud form Terrible to Horrendous

The Foreclosure Mess Could Last for Years
The dimensions of the foreclosure crisis keep expanding. Lenders and loan servicers including JPMorgan Chase and Ally Financial are facing an explosion in homeowner lawsuits and state attorney general investigations of claims of falsified mortgage documents. Lawmakers in both houses of Congress have called for investigations. And procedural mistakes in the handling of mortgage documents have clouded titles establishing ownership of the homes, a problem that could plague both buyers and sellers for years. "This is going to become a hydra," says Peter J. ...

BusinessWeek
The Foreclosure Mess Could Last for Years
The dimensions of the foreclosure crisis keep expanding. Lenders and loan servicers including JPMorgan Chase (NYSE:JPM - News) and Ally Financial are facing an explosion in homeowner lawsuits and state attorney general investigations of claims of falsified mortgage documents. Lawmakers in both houses of Congress have called for investigations. And procedural mistakes in the handling of mortgage documents have clouded titles establishing ownership of the homes, a problem that could plague both buyers and sellers for years. "This is going to become a hydra," says Peter J. Henning, a professor at Wayne State University Law School in Detroit. "You've got so many potential avenues of liability. You don't even know the parameters of this yet." Read more...
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Foreclosures: Pausing and Rewinding

Zacks.com submits: Are we facing the specter of another foreclosure crisis? That is what the decision taken by three major lenders to stall foreclosures would seem to suggest.
JPMorgan Halts Foreclosure Process: Are We Facing a Foreclosure Crisis?

Zacks.com submits: On Wednesday, JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) announced that it is stopping nearly 56,000 foreclosures. The company said that it will verify many of the loan documents that some of its employees may have singed without properly verifying the authenticity of the information in them. The verification includes the accuracy of the loan information, including who owns the mortgage.
Faulty Foreclosures May Prolong the Slump (BusinessWeek)

BusinessWeek - Howard Cohen hasn't paid the loan on his Tukwila (Wash.) home in a year, and when he heard in mid-September that Ally Financial's GMAC Mortgage unit was suspending foreclosure evictions in 23 states, it gave him hope. "Maybe I'll stay in my house, too," says Cohen, a 57-year-old commercial-loan broker whose business fell off after the financial crisis. Cohen was encouraged even though his mortgage servicer, Bank of America , hasn't reported any irregularities.
Ohio accuses Ally of 'fraudulent' foreclosures

Ally Financial and its subsidiary GMAC Mortgage are being sued by the Ohio Attorney General for allegedly submitting fraudulent documents in hundreds of foreclosure cases across the state.
Record number of borrowers get mortgage help

Mortgage lenders helped save a record 225,000 at-risk mortgage borrowers from losing their homes during October, according to a report issued Tuesday by a coalition of lenders, mortgage servicers, investors and counselors assembled to fight the foreclosure plague.
JPMorgan Chase expanding foreclosure review

JPMorgan Chase is expanding its review of foreclosure documents, according to a person close to the bank.
Ohio AG sues Ally Financial over foreclosures (AP)

AP - Ohio's attorney general is suing Ally Financial Inc. and its GMAC Mortgage division, alleging the company violated state fraud laws in handling foreclosure cases.
U.S. lawmakers seek foreclosure investigations (Reuters)

Reuters - California Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives are calling for federal investigations into whether financial institutions broke any laws in their handling of foreclosures in the midst of the U.S. housing crisis.

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