State AG Announces Probe Into Florida Foreclosure Mills For Allegedly Manufacturing Phony Documents Used To Take Homes Away From Delinquent Borrowers

The Palm Beach Post reports:

• The Florida Attorney General's office announced this morning investigations into the state's three largest foreclosure law firms for allegations of unfair and deceptive actions. The firms, sometimes called "foreclosure mills," are the Fort Lauderdale Law Offices of Marshall C. Watson, Tampa-based Shapiro & Fishman, and the Law Offices of David J. Stern, based in Plantation.

• Last month, a lawsuit seeking class action status was filed by a Fort Lauderdale attorney against Stern claiming the firm generated fraudulent mortgage assignments when pursuing foreclosures. An assignment is held by the entity that has the right to receive mortgage payments. Stern's practice, which the lawsuit claims filed up to 7,000 foreclosure cases in Florida every month last year, also is alleged in the suit to have pursued foreclosures for lenders that didn't own the debt on the homes.

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• A press release from Attorney General Bill McCollum's office says because many mortgages have been bought and sold by financial institutions multiple times, key paperwork involved in the process to obtain foreclosure judgments is often missing. "On numerous occasions, allegedly fabricated documents have been presented to the courts in foreclosure actions to obtain final judgments against homeowners," the press release states. "Thousands of final judgments of foreclosure against Florida homeowners may have been the result of the allegedly improper actions of the law firms under investigation."(1)

Source: State probes whether three law firms falsified foreclosure documents.

See also:

Sarasota Herald Tribune:

• Sarasota's legal community has sounded the alarm for years over shoddy or fraudulent paperwork being used to take thousands of properties from Florida homeowners in foreclosure. Local judges have reversed foreclosure sales, thrown cases out of court and created extra reviews to help ensure that attorneys for lenders follow the rules. On Tuesday, Attorney General Bill McCollum took the fight statewide, launching investigations into three of the state's largest "foreclosure mills."

South Florida Sun Sentinel: Three South Florida law firms investigated over foreclosure cases:

• The Florida attorney general issued [] subpoenas this week, requesting reams of paperwork by the end of the month from attorneys working in the foreclosure capital of the country. [...] The subpoenas request documents going back to at least Jan. 1, 2008.

Mother Jones: Florida AG Unveils Foreclosure Mills Probe:

• David J Stern AG's Subpoena,
• Marshall C Watson AG's Subpoena,
• Shapiro & Fishman AG's Subpoena.

(1) Those who have recently bought a home that had been previously foreclosed upon within the last several years better pull out and review their title insurance policy to determine that they are protected against future title claims that could arise by reason of these potentially void foreclosure judgments.