Lex Consultings mortgage fraud examiners project is warning foreclosure attorneys to be extra careful to identify contract breaches and/or tortious conduct or face malpractice or at least disgorgement of fees from their own client. Only exposure of contract breaches and/or tortious conduct underlying a mortgage transaction provides a sound strategic basis for liberating homeowners from the bondage of mortgage foreclosure, said Storm Bradford, founder of the project. Homeowners and attorneys need to understand a promissory note/mortgage/deed of trust is nothing more, nothing less than a contract. Moreover, attorneys need to be extra careful, he added. According to several ethics
Illinois. The U.S. Attorneys Office for the Northern District of Illinois announced that a former South Holland, IL, man, Kenneth Steward, was sentenced to 17 years and six months in federal prison for allegedly directing a $35 million mortgage fraud scheme involving more than 120 residences on Chicagos south side. The scheme caused various lenders and financial institutions to lose approximately $16 million on mortgage loans that were not repaid by the borrowers or fully recovered through subsequent foreclosure sales, federal law enforcement officials said. The sentence that was imposed is one of the longest ever given to a mortgage fraud defendant in federal court in Chicago, according to officials.
A conservative, non-partisan public interest group is considering its options following a recent federal appeals court decision affirming the Federal Housing Finance Agencys right to withhold documentation revealing the extent of political campaign donations made by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.On Aug. 5, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia upheld a lower court ruling against Judicial Watch.
AARP has filed a class action lawsuit against Wells Fargo Bank and Fannie Mae in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in San Francisco on behalf of reverse mortgage borrowers and their survivors in what it says is an attempt to head off illegal Home Equity Conversion Mortgage foreclosures and evictions.