Monday, February 14, 2011

Fannie Gives Florida Foreclosure Mill The Boot Over Faulty Paperwork Issues

The Palm Beach Post reports:

  • Federal mortgage giant Fannie Mae has cut ties with a second South Florida law firm handling its foreclosure cases, requiring an immediate transfer of those files to other attorneys and likely causing more turmoil in the state's foreclosure courts.

  • The termination of its relationship with the Fort Lauderdale firm of Ben-Ezra & Katz, P.A. was announced today in a notice to loan servicers. The notice says payments to the firm should be stopped immediately and gives servicers a Feb. 15 deadline to find new firms to handle the Ben-Ezra & Katz files.

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  • The move by Fannie Mae follows its November firing of David J. Stern's Plantation-based law firm, which is one of four so-called "foreclosure mills" under investigation by the Florida attorney general's office.

For more, see Fannie Mae fires second South Florida law firm.

For a recent hammering administered by a Miami judge on Mr. Ben-Ezra's firm in a recent case, see Central Mortgage Co. v. Gonzalez Del Real.