Firmar documentos de foreclosure bajo otro nombre es falsificación?

Is signing foreclosure documents for others forgery?

Updated: 8:52 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 14, 2012
Posted: 6:03 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 14, 2012
By KIMBERLY MILLER, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Theresa Edwards (left) and June Clarkson, who led Florida’s foreclosure fraud investigations, were routinely praised in performance reviews before losing their jobs.


The Nevada attorney general calls signing another person's name on documents used to repossess a home "forgery" and a "scheme."

Michigan's attorney general launched a criminal investigation that includes whether "falsified signatures" were used in foreclosure cases.

But Theresa Edwards and June Clarkson were forced to resign their jobs as foreclosure fraud investigators for the Florida Attorney General's Office, in part, for referring to so-called "surrogate signing" as forgery.

According to a Florida Inspector General report that cleared Attorney General Pam Bondi's office of wrongdoing in the firings, the duo repeatedly used the word "forgery" in a 2010 presentation that included documents from the Jacksonville-based Lender Processing Services. The company complained and drew the attention of economic crimes boss Richard Lawson.

PB Post: Termina el Programa de Mediación para Ejecuciones Hipotecarias de Florida

Admitting failure, Florida Supreme Court ends foreclosure mediation program

By JEFF OSTROWSKI

Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Posted: 5:40 p.m. Monday, Dec. 19, 2011

Florida's foreclosure crisis lives on, but a statewide mediation program for troubled borrowers is dead.

Florida Supreme Court Chief Justice Charles T. Canady issued an order Monday ending the effort to encourage lenders and borrowers to avoid foreclosure.

The program was a flop. Only 3.6 percent of cases referred to mediation statewide yielded a written agreement between the lender and homeowner. In Palm Beach County, which began its program in July 2010, a mere 1.6 percent of the 4,632 cases sent to mediation resulted in a written agreement.

Often, lenders couldn't even reach borrowers to propose mediation. Of 78,076 cases referred to mediation statewide, lenders managed to get in touch with just 42 percent of borrowers.

"The court has reviewed the reports on the program and determined it cannot justify continuation of the program," Canady wrote.

Lenders and borrowers can continue to haggle over loans already in the mediation program, but it will take on no new cases, he said.

Lenders blamed economic reality for the program's failure. Home prices have plummeted and jobless rates have soared since the real estate bubble burst, creating financial obstacles that were just too great for many to overcome, said Anthony DiMarco, executive vice president of government affairs at the Florida Bankers Association.

Propietarios en apuros se benefician con fallo de la corte en Florida

Struggling homeowners gain favor in key ruling

By KIMBERLY MILLER

Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Updated: 9:10 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 15, 2011

Posted: 9:08 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 15, 2011

Home­owners in foreclosure may have a better chance of getting a true trial, instead of a quickie judgment, following a 4th District Court of Appeal decision that requires banks to prove ownership of the note at the time they file for repossession.

The ruling Wednesday in Palm Beach County was heralded by foreclosure defense attorneys who said it may even force banks to dismiss some cases and start over with new paperwork.

Tom Ice, founder of the Royal Palm Beach-based foreclosure defense firm Ice Legal, called the decision a "sea change" in the way courts are looking at foreclosure cases and the importance of assignments of mortgage.

"No longer can banks just walk in and have their attorney wave around a piece of paper saying this is the note," Ice said. "The good news for homeowners is now they have an opportunity to prove their case and get a trial on its merits."

The 4th DCA ruling follows a rare Florida Supreme Court decision last week to take up an already settled Greenacres foreclosure case that involved an allegedly backdated assignment of mortgage that the bank used to show ownership. The court said it wanted to rule on the case, in which the homeowner was defended by Ice's firm, because its opinion could have an impact on the "mortgage foreclosure crisis throughout the state."

Wednesday's ruling was on the case of Robert McLean vs. JPMorgan Chase, and involved a 2009 Broward County foreclosure.

Fannie Mae ignoró abusos de "robo-firmas" en ejecuciones hipotecarias de FL

Fannie Mae ignored robo-signing abuses in Florida foreclosures, investigation finds

By KIMBERLY MILLER

Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Updated: 9:39 p.m. Friday, Sept. 23, 2011

Posted: 9:37 p.m. Friday, Sept. 23, 2011

Federal mortgage giant Fannie Mae was told in 2006 about faulty court documents filed by Florida foreclosure attorneys acting on its behalf but did nothing to correct the practices, an inspector general found.

A report issued Friday by the Federal Housing Finance Agency, Office of Inspector General said an outside law firm Fannie Mae hired to investigate allegations of wrongdoing confirmed "unlawful" practices and stated that foreclosure attorneys were sacrificing accuracy for speed by filing false documents.

Miles de demandas de ejecuciones hipotecarias resueltas en 3 meses

65,830 foreclosure cases in Florida cleared in three months

11/02/2010 © Palm Beach Post
By Kimberly Miller

Florida's courts cleared 65,830 foreclosure cases in a three-month period beginning July 1, with 71 percent being decided in quickie hearings before the judge sometimes called "rocket dockets."
According to a report released today by the Office of State Courts Administration, only 23 foreclosure cases went to trial statewide during the same time period.

PB Post: El Robin Hood de los dueños de casa lucha contra los gigantes de las ejecuciones hipotecarias

Homeowners' Robin Hood fights foreclosure giants


10/14/2010 © Palm Beach Post

Tom Ice was a desert boy who wanted to be Jacques Cousteau. He earned the degree and everything, leaving his home in Santa Fe, N.M., to study ocean engineering at the University of Miami.

But the former high school debater had an inexplicable change of heart, one that led him from the rhythmic comfort of the ocean to the tense arguments of the courtroom. Ice, 50, has emerged as a Robin Hood of sorts in the tangled world of foreclosures, representing homeowners and fighting powerful law firms backed by big banks.

From his West Palm Beach home - he doesn't have an office at his firm in Ice's legal wrangling is largely recognized for contributing to the nationwide suspension of foreclosures enacted by several major lenders. On Wednesday, attorneys general from every state launched a nationwide probe of loan servicers.

Ice credits his engineering background for his attention to detail and years of litigating for his tenacity. He was trained, he said, to doubt everything the other side says and "look under every rock." What he and his wife, Ariane, found buried under boulders of foreclosure paperwork were backdated documents, affidavits sworn to by bank employees processing thousands of foreclosures a month, and questionable assignments of mortgages coming out of the Mortgage Electronic Registration System, or MERS.

NYT: Florida tiene una respuesta rápida al desastre hipotecario

September 4, 2010

Florida’s High-Speed Answer to a Foreclosure Mess

By GRETCHEN MORGENSON and GERALDINE FABRIKANT

TEN days from now, a four-bedroom house on a cul-de-sac in Middleburg, Fla., is scheduled to be auctioned off at the Clay County courthouse, 25 miles south of Jacksonville.

A judge who recently took over their foreclosure case has ordered Rodney Waters; his fiancée, Terri Reese; and their four children to leave the home they bought in 2006.

Mr. Waters, a supervisor at a local packaging company and the family’s sole breadwinner, fell behind on his mortgage two years ago after his property taxes jumped unexpectedly. He now owes $264,000 on the house; a similar home down the street sold for $138,500 in February.

The predicament of the Waters-Reese family is common in Florida today. The state routinely sets new records for foreclosures — in the second quarter, 20.13 percent of its mortgages were delinquent or in foreclosure, a national high, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. And with housing prices still in a free fall, almost half of all borrowers in Florida owe more on their mortgages than their properties are worth, says CoreLogic, a data firm.