Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Dubious Document Signed Years After Lender Tanked Surfaces In Ongoing South Carolina Foreclosure Action

Buried in a recent story in The Myrtle Beach Sun News on the foreclosure fraud scandal (story mentions Docx, Linda Green, LPS - the 'usual suspects') is the following excerpt on how one couple facing foreclosure was victimized by a dubious assignment of mortgage that was signed a couple of years after the mortgagee of record went out of business:
  • Bob and Christine Dorrie moved to Myrtle Beach from the Bronx in New York in 1998. Like many people during the economic boom, the Dorries used their credit cards to finance a lifestyle beyond their means. So, in September 2007, they decided to refinance their home in the Island Green East neighborhood to pay off some of their bills.

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  • The Dorries' mortgage payment, which had been $987 a month, soared to $1,340 a month after the refinance. As the economy grew worse, the Dorries quickly fell behind on their house payment.


  • Wells Fargo Bank, the new owner of the Dorries' loan, filed a foreclosure lawsuit against the couple on Sept. 2, 2009. Bob Dorrie's emergency bankruptcy filing three days before the house was to be sold at auction has put everything in limbo. The Dorries now are questioning how Wells Fargo came to own their loan.


  • Ace Funding - the company that gave the Dorries their loan in 2007 - filed for bankruptcy protection and went out of business the following year, never officially assigning the Dorries' loan over to Wells Fargo.


  • Wells Fargo didn't file the assignment on behalf of the defunct Ace Funding until more than three weeks after the foreclosure lawsuit was filed. A lawyer representing Wells Fargo in the foreclosure lawsuit signed the document for Ace Funding, even though he "really has no authority to assign this mortgage," according to Terry Walden, an audit originator and attorney liaison for New South Financial.

For the story, see Mortgage papers raise Myrtle Beach real estate fraud claims (Signatures on documents used in foreclosure cases under review).