Return Of The Robosigners In Fannie Mae's Pursuit Of Deficiency Judgments To Squeeze Foreclosed, Ex-Homeowners

The New York Times reports:

• Remember the robo-signers, those mortgage loan automatons who authenticated thousands of foreclosure documents over the years without verifying the information they were swearing to?
  
  Well, they’re back, in a manner of speaking, at least in Florida. Their dubious documents are being used to hound former borrowers years after their homes went into foreclosure.
  
  Robo-signer redux, as it might be called, has come about because of an aggressive pursuit of former borrowers by debt collectors hired by Fannie Mae, the mortgage finance giant. What Fannie is trying to recoup from these borrowers is the difference between what the borrowers owed on the mortgages when they were foreclosed and the amount Fannie received when it resold the properties.
  
  These monetary amounts — and they can be significant — are known as deficiency judgments. It is legal in most states for lenders to pursue them. (California is one notable exception.) The time limit for debt collectors to go after former borrowers varies from state to state; Florida allows deficiencies to be pursued for 20 years, and borrowers must pay a compounded annual interest rate of 4.5 percent.
  
  The problem, experts say, arises when robo-signed documents enabled banks to foreclose even when they didn’t have legal standing to do so.
  
  
  ***
  
  “It’s bad enough that Fannie Mae and their collectors are pursuing consumers many years after they’ve lost their homes,” [attorney Chip] Parker said. “But the fact that these lawsuits may be built on a foundation of foreclosure fraud is galling.”
  
  Amazing, isn’t it, how the effects of the foreclosure crisis go on and on?

For more, see Borrowers, Beware: The Robo-Signers Aren’t Finished Yet.