'Biggest Case In Ohio F'closure Law In A Century' Takes Unusual Turn; Homeowner's Mtg. Debt Mysteriously Disappears; Banksters, Lawyers: 'No Comment!'

In Cleveland, Ohio, Ohio Public Radio reports:

• The Ohio Supreme Court is getting ready to take on what some are calling the biggest issue in state foreclosure law in a century. The question before the justices is what paperwork does a lender need to force an owner out of his home? For Ohio Public Radio, WCPN’s Mhari Saito reports that what the state's justices decide could have huge implications for the financial services industry.



• Antoine Duvall and his wife and young son waited until after Christmas to move into their freshly renovated two-story house in Cleveland’s Collinwood neighborhood. It was 2006 and Duvall, a salesperson for a legal document services company, had just happily signed a mortgage and a promissory note to get his loan from Wells Fargo. But soon, he started to get letters about his loan.

***

• The Duvall case seemed like a good one for the state Supreme Court to rule on to settle the issue but it has taken an unusual twist. You might even call it another bank snafu. The homeowner, Duvall, now owes nothing on his mortgage because - in an action unrelated to the Supreme Court case - the loan servicer cleared his debt completely in June.



• Duvall doesn’t know why it happened and neither his loan servicer nor US Bank’s attorneys are commenting. It’s not clear what the state Supreme Court will do, but attorneys for both sides say the legal question is not going away. The court could still take up the Duvall case or it could address several other cases on the same issue, waiting in the wings.(1)

For more, see Who owns the deed? (The Ohio Supreme Court is taking up the question of what a bank needs to prove to force someone from his home).

(1) The use of '11th hour' legal maneuvers to dodge a potentially adverse court ruling in the foreclosure context by the sleazy banksters is not unheard of. In a recent Florida foreclosure case involving the use of dubious documents to obtain a foreclosure judgment, the banksters and their foreclosure mill avoided having the Florida Supreme Court hear an appeal of a case by reaching a settlement with the screwed over homeowner shortly before the case was presented to the Florida high court (keep in mind that this was a case the banksters had won decisively at the intermediate appeals level). See:

• Banksters Dodge Big Bullet In Major Florida Supreme Court Foreclosure Fraud Case; Reach Settlement With Screwed-Over Homeowner,
• Use Of Voluntary Dismissal To Dodge Scrutiny After Failed Attempt To Dupe Court By Producing, Filing Dubious Docs At Issue In Recent Foreclosure Suit,
• F'closure Mill Dodges Appellate Court Reversal On Merits; Opts To 'Confess Error' Instead In Agreeing To Reversal Of Rubber-Stamped Lower Court Ruling.