Fraudulent property records

[Funk4Crunk]

For anyone who is, or may soon be, in foreclosure or knows someone who is, or may soon be, I cannot state strongly enough:

REVIEW YOUR COUNTY OR CITY RECORDED DOCUMENTS RELATIVE TO YOUR PROPERTY.

I refinanced 3 properties with Town & Country Credit Corp. where the Assignment of Mortgage/Deed were all to Ameriquest Mortgage Company (per the signatures on the *back* of the Mortgage Note) as Assignee (on 12/17/2003 *before* the 12/30/2003 settlement!)

I simply did a routine sale of one property in 2005. The closing was a fiasco. I now understand why.

The Title Insurance Company demanded that I show proof that when I made the routine purchase of that property in *1995*, that the prior mortgage had been paid off during that settlement.

Since I am compulsive about keeping legal documents/evidence, I was actually able to call my daughter, tell her where those records were stored, and she faxed a copy of that 1995 settlement to the Title Company.

Now, flash forward to 2008-2009. Per my prior posts, my Chapter 7 Bankruptcy was closed on May 5, 2009, with no intentions (no possibility of a loan mod, whatsoever) of reaffirming either property.

Now, my rental property has had the foreclosure process begun.

Although I truly want to get that deed out of my name ASAP, I am using that lawsuit in one county as a "trial run" for the likely foreclosure of my home (that I designed myself) in a different county.

Here is what jumped out at me:

Citi Residential created FRAUDULENT property records for *both* properties, to give the current note *holder* the "appearance* of legal standing as "Real Party in Interest" in order to be able to foreclose AT ALL.

Do a Google search for "Crystal Moore" and "vice president" (both in quotes).

She was the "vice president" who signed both of my fraudulent property records.

Fraudulent how, you ask?

1. My home recorded document specifies Assignment of Mortgage/Deed from Town & Country Credit to an Ameriquest Deutsche Bank Trust, which may be the case.

Slight problem 1 - the effective date of the transfer is February of 200*9*, when the trust *CLOSED* in 200*4* per the SEC site!

Slight problem 2 - per the signatures discussed below, T&C had already Assigned the Mortgage/Deed to Ameriquest Mortgage Company in 2003!

2. My rental property recorded document specifies Assignment of Mortgage/Deed from Town & Country Credit to JPMorgan Bank effective 12/31/08.

Slight problem 1 - Citi Residential sent me a RESPA correction letter in 200*7* that Washington Mutual Bank was the creditor. Per phone calls *now* to Chase Home Finance LLC as my current servicer, WAMU is *still* the creditor (or "investor").

Slight problem 2 - per the signatures discussed below, T&C had already Assigned the Mortgage/Deed to Ameriquest Mortgage Company in 2003!

Additional fraudulent record creation/"Fraud upon the Court":

A Motion to remove *each* property (for two different servicing companies) was filed in my BK7.

1. One motion specifically stated that American Home Mortgage Servicing Inc. (AHMSI) was the primary lienholder for my home, while the Creditor was AHMSI *on behalf* of a Deutsche Bank Trust (first I ever heard of it!)

In court, I questioned why point 2 of the stay order motion specified AHMSI as lienholder. The (dumb??) attorney indicated that that was to save space

Just today, AHMSI indicated via their secure message system that they have nothing to do with the lender. That *message* told me to contact Town & Country Credit! That means that AHMSI has no legal standing to foreclose on my home at all!

2. The other motion was on behalf of JPMC Specialty Mortgage LLC (Specialty), again as the primary lienholder for my rental property.

Slight problem - per the property records, Specialty was not Assignee of the Mortgage/Deed from JPMorgan Chase Bank until after that motion had already been filed.

Even more of a problem - that JPMorgan to Specialty assignment record was:

1. Created by the law firm on behalf of Specialty,
2. Signed by a "representative" of MERS (who happens to be an attorney with the same law firm),
3. Recorded by the law firm,
4. Notarized by the law firm (possibly), and
5. Returned to the law firm.

The document has no Document Date, mentions "prior to 4/23/09" in the paragraph, but has a notarized signature/date for 3/24/09, which happens to be after the 3/17/09 filing of the motion with the US Bankruptcy Court!

And here are the additional corkers:

1. CitiResidential had mailed me via USPS on December 2, 2008, a Notice of Intent to Foreclose for *both* properties.
2. CitiResidential then Assigned the Mortgage/Deed for both properties after they were both already in default.
3. The JPMorgan Bank Assignment of Mortgage/Deed to Specialty was after the BK 7 had been filed (and that assignment record is the one the attorneys created/recorded for Specialty *after* the BK 7 motion).
4. Since I sold the one property, I was sent the original/now Paid Off Mortgage and Note, again with "signatures" on the back of the Note.

Get this, the signatures on the back of the paid-off Original Note are almost identical to the ones filed with the court as "proof of note holder status" for my rental, when placed over each other and held up to a bright light.

Not only are there no dates or notarized witnesses on the back of either Note, I think the signatures were simply ink pad stamps!

That would mean that all subsequent Assignments of Mortgage/Deed for *both* properties are not legally enforeable from the outset!

Can you see why everyone needs to AUDIT any/all property records that are recorded AND to see which records are not recorded, particularly mortgage *releases*. It was that missing *release* from 1995 that caused the crisis in an "ordinary" sale closing a decade later.

If you see references to MERS "as nominee", the entire purpose of the MERS system was to *avoid* paying recording fees. Now, they are finding out that without clear "chain of custody" as Note *OWNER*, there is no legal standing to foreclose at all.

Hence the fraudulent attempts to create the appearance of Real Party in Interest as Note *OWNER* after the fact-

I suspect that simply paying a legitimate Title Insurance Company for a Title Search, without buying actual Title Insurance, will give you advance notice of *help* in the foreclosure mess or *avoidance* of problems if you simply wish to sell the property for downsizing, retirement, or whatever.

Good luck, everyone! Don't let these criminals steal your home!

[Catia]

WOW...
Crystal Moore huh?

I've got her signature ALL OVER my docs too--as "vice president"

last year I started doing searches trying to find out who she is...

I spent endless hours of the day coming up with NOTHING.

my mortgage too was caught up in some type of Ameriquest/Argent/SLS mortgage fraud.

I began a 1/2 assed attempt at auditing my mortgage in 2006-beCAUSE THEY WERE HARASSING ME EVEN WHEN i WAS IN CURRENT PAID STATUS-before I even knew that is what it was called-"AUDITING"-I really needed/wanted to KNOW who owned my loan due to constant conflict with loan servicer SLS.

I demanded to know who owned my loan, and SLS flat refused to tell me.

This was long BEFORE I was in foreclosure.

My correspondence to SLS MUST have started some type of investigation into my docs on their end--I suppose I will never REALLY know.

What resulted was a bunch of stuff I did not expect--Nor could I have guessed what the result would be.

In 2007 I fell behind on the mortgage, and was considering BK--which is how I ended up here on this site.

I received ALL the foreclosure notices, and I moved out, and awaited notice of sheriff sale.

I wanted nothing more to do with the house or the lender/servicing company SLS...

A year later (july 2008)...I get a letter from SLS thanking me for my business--stating my loan was "paid in full"

I KNEW this HAD to be a mistake--so I went to the recorder of deeds for my county--I figured the sheriff sale/foreclosure had happened without my knowledge--and I wanted to make sure I was not mistaken.

The County dept of real estate handed me a "mortgage satisfaction piece"--STAMPED AND CERTIFIED--forever releasing me from the mortgage on that property--

THE PROPERTY WAS NOT FORECLOSED UPON.

Then after trying to contact every single person on all docs from county--I got papers from a title company, and copies of other docs--my mortage was in fact paid in full, and I was released from all responsibility for the mortgage.

I WAS TOLD BY EVERY ATTY I SPOKE TO THE HOUSE WAS MINE FREE AND CLEAR.

This all after I had moved and gave up--a year later--with no correspondence from SLS--they flat refused to work out anything with me ever--not for lack of me trying--which was WHY I was trying to find out who ACTUALLY owned my loan in the 1st place.

Still I felt the entire situation MUST be a mistake...I contacted SLS by phone and in writing--no response--

Fast Forward to 2009-- Jan of 2009 I received a COD from SLS--cancellation of debt--for the entire mortgage balance. As IF I had NEVER made a payment at all...(which I still may fight to get reimbursed for, not sure where i stand legally on this one)

I filed my taxes using the mortgage debt relief act for cancellation of debt--with the aid of the IRS direct--because I don't want it coming back on me since I had moved out. IRS ASSURED ME--it was my primary residence when this all began, and I could use the mortgage debt relief act--

Not trusting the govt--I documented ALL correspondence with the IRS--and also followed their instructins to the "t"...

And guess what? the house IS MINE free and clear.

And I did NOT have to pay taxes on the cancelled mortgage debt--per the IRS..

I still have not found out who in fact owned my mortgage.


What I BELEIVE--based on docs I have uncovered thus far--is that Argent--my original lender sold my note/loan to Ameriquest, Ameriquest did not properly record docs, and then Ameriquest sold it to AMC--who ALSO DID NO RECORDING--ALL OF THE INVOLVED COMPANIES ARE SISTER CO'S OF AMERIQUEST...BUT NO RECORDING OF ANY DOCS after the original mortgage--with ARGENT--which also appeared to be recorded PAST the LEGAL deadline for recording...So...nothing was EVER properly legally recorded--So there WAS NO MORTGAGE from any legal perspective that could be inforceable in court if they tried to foreclose--and I asked them to prove they owned the note...

SLS knew full well they were collecting $$ they had no right to-Especially after I demanded to know who owned my note-it is of my opinion this is why they cancelled the mortgage...

Who signed my Mortgage Satisfaction piece with the title company and my County Dept of RE????

...CRYSTAL MOORE...

THANKS FOR THE "FREE HOUSE" CRYSTAL...

Would've been nice if someone coulda let me know before I went thru the aggrivation of moving a year previously--before I was threatened with foreclosure and sheriff sale...

Life is truly stranger than fiction...

So yes--question your loan servicer--the lender--who ever--make them produce proof of who owns the note--if it is NOT recorded properly--and you never question it, it is assumed you admit to the debt--and foreclosure can legally take place...

Also--in hindsight--IF....IF SLS would have worked out an agreement with me, as I originally wanted--I would've SIGNED DOCUMENTS to that effect--and at that time--those docs would've been proof of me owning the debt--and would've been inforcable--But SLS refused to work with me...So glad now they would not work with me....

[Catia]

Holy crap!!!

sorry for bumping my last post, fact is, after reading your post--I decided to do another search re: CRYSTAL MOORE

the other person on my title co docs is Bryan Bly...and all docs were done in Pinellas county...


read this link!!! wow! it never ends with these people! a guy in a trailer park with no cred??? UGH!

I've gotta contact my atty to be sure I'm not gonna get any backlash for any of this FRAUD!!!!

http://www.consumerwarningnetwork.com/2009/05/04/lenders-inability-to-produce-the-note-leads-to-shady-new-practice/

[phreaks]

What happened?

I too have an assignement signed byCrystal Moore and Brian Bly, Dated in 2009. My mortgage closed in 2005, and I believe that Argent went out of business in 2007.

What to do? What happened with you folks? have you made any progress?

[sofarsogood2]

I really want to understand this stuff better. but I find it all confusing. Excuse my ignorance, but I want to learn about this
.
I went on my county web site and the note says that MERS is the mortgagee. A couple of pages later, it says MERS holds title. I used to pay IndyMac, but now OneWest. The original lender was Quicken Loans and that is mentioned. I guess it was immediately sold it to IndyMac, then taken over by OneWest. But nothing in the county records indicates anything about IndyMac or OneWest being assigned the loan or having anything to do with my mortgage. Is it supposed to? What type of doc am I looking for? Or is it recorded correctly?

[sofarsogood2]

Ok- did some research and apparently, in the opinion of a few but growing number of judges, the millions of loans with MERS named as the mortgagee may be void and null. I read through about 20 articles, decisions and legal opinions. There are multiple issues surrounding MERS and foreclosures.

I'm going to try to explain what I read- sorry so long, but alot of interesting info. I am not an attorney by any means, just going to try to summarize the opinions noted by attorneys on many websites and some news articles about the recent rulings that I came across. I googled MERS as mortgagee right to foreclose and several variations of that.

Alot of technical legal terminology, but the gist I got from it was that foreclosure attorneys have been litigating for several years that MERS is not a lender, just a data recorder, and cannot be the mortgagee and title holder on a loan for real property and, therefore, cannot foreclose. Mers did not loan any money and did not collect any payments and therefore cannot claim to have any vested interest in the property. The way these contracts are worded and the way the mortgagee, title holder and note holder are divided up and assigned in these mortgages, with Mers as "nominee" and mortgagee, voids anyones right to foreclose, even the original lenders and/ or servicers as there is no paper trail that can be legally established.

Only in the past few month have they begun to get some positive rulings in these cases, which could potentially call into question the validity of millions of foreclosure suits (past and present) and current servicers rights to collect on mortgages.

It is nearly impossible, after the slicing, dicing, and multiple selling of loans, to determine exactly who does have a vested interest because the original parties have sold their interest, and therefore, have been paid.

Also, Mers has now stopped listing itself as the plaintiff in foreclosure suits (I read an actual company memo suddenly halting this procedure) and is attempting to assign mortgages back to the original lender in fraudulent, backdoor methods (post dated assignments and invalid authority of the signatures on these assignments/ affidavits of personal knowledge) that judges are finally catching onto. On top of that, according to many lawyers, and now a few judges, MERS has no legal standing to assign mortgages in the first place.

In addition, someone purchasing a property that was foreclosed by Mers or thru a fraudulent assignee transfer, could have a clouded title and the property could be ineligable for title insurance in future sales and calls into question true ownership by the new owner.

These rulings are very recent in nature and many foreclosure attorneys are gearing up to use these judge's decisions to fight Mers. It could rock the entire real estate, mortgage and financial world as we see it. Title companies, who are the vehicles for the fraudulent transfers of assignment, could be in for alot of hurting.

Depositions have been taken from several of the supposid "authorized signers" of these backdoor assignments. They are employees of various title companies, now turned into foreclosure mills. The employees signature is supposed to verify that these people have personal knowledge of the loan in question- they do not- they have no legal or mortgage backgound. Their job was to come in and sit down at a desk piled high with affidavits of assignment and just sit there all day signing them. They have actually admitted they had no idea exactly what the paperwork was, they were just told to sign it. These "signers" were completely clueless as to what the affidavit they were signing off on meant. These papers are what gives an assignee the right to foreclose and according to what I read, they are fraudulent. The paperwork claims that these signers are "vice presidents" of Mers, when they were never employed by Mers in any capacity- only by the title company. The depositions are being circulated to foreclosure attorneys across the nation, as any one of these "vice- presidents" have signed off on thousands and thousands of documents. Judges are beginning to recognize that there is no feasable way any one person could have personal knowledge of all these mortgages they signed off on. There are also issues with notary stamps on documents as the notary's commission was not in effect on the date of the assignment, threby invalidating the document as evidence to institute foreclosure.

Grab the popcorn- hopefully this will be exciting, as it could force hundreds of thosands of foreclosures suits to be invalidated and, at the very least, provide leverage for modification.

I find it interesting that suddenly and recently (the past week),the TBTF lenders are starting to admit that principle reductions should be done. Are they afraid of this MERS issue being resolved in the homewners favor? Do they know some of these mortgages could be called into question? Very, very interesting...

[phreaks]

I really want to understand this stuff better. but I find it all confusing. Excuse my ignorance, but I want to learn about this
.
I went on my county web site and the note says that MERS is the mortgagee. A couple of pages later, it says MERS holds title. I used to pay IndyMac, but now OneWest. The original lender was Quicken Loans and that is mentioned. I guess it was immediately sold it to IndyMac, then taken over by OneWest. But nothing in the county records indicates anything about IndyMac or OneWest being assigned the loan or having anything to do with my mortgage. Is it supposed to? What type of doc am I looking for? Or is it recorded correctly?

I am just beginning to semi-understand this stuff myself. So take anything I say here with a grain of salt and also understand that your state laws may differ from mine. Alos I don't have a MERS loan, so your situation may again differ.

1) I don't believe that anything has to be publicly recorded when your servicer sells or transfers the servicing rights.

2) When your itself is sold or transferred, there should be a public recording of said assignment at your county or city clerks office.

I guess then we are suppose to get the Certificate series numbers from the assignments and verify those against the SEC website. The prospectus for your series should note the "Close Date" of the trust.

It's my understanding that the assignments should have been done before the close date of the trust.

Although in my case the assignment was recorded 4 years later, and I'm not sure that actually gives me any leverage or not.

Also review the assignments and note who signed them.
Mine were signed by Crystal Moore and Bryan Bly as Vice President of Citi Residential lending acting as Lawyer-in-Fact for Argent Mortgage Co.

According to the prospectus, the depositor was Argent Securities Inc, so again it doesn't seem to match what it should be but I don't know if this realistically provides any real leverage or not.

If anyone could chime in, I would really appreciate it.

[Tom_Mi]

Guys, are you getting all this info in your closing docs, or from activity at your county register of deeds?

If the latter, what am I specifically to ask the clerk for when I walk in?

Thanks!

[phreaks]

Guys, are you getting all this info in your closing docs, or from activity at your county register of deeds?

If the latter, what am I specifically to ask the clerk for when I walk in?

Thanks!

I had a title search performed by a title company. It cost $300.

Still not sure what good it has done, this stuff is pretty complicated.

I am still trying to figure out even the most basic of issues like, what effect if any does the fact that my mortgage was not recorded or assigned until 4 years after the trust that supposedly owned it closed.

Does it matter? I have no idea.

[secondtimer]

Spend some time looking around their website.

http://www.mersinc.org/index.aspx

Somewhere it states something to the effect that MERS has to assign the note to another entity (law firm,servicer,bank)in order to foreclose on a property that is on MERS.
MERS used to be able to send an "agent" to court but they changed their policy to now re-assign it out of MERS so the hearing can proceed without MERS being the mortgagee.
I'm recalling this from memory so it's probably not completely accurate.

[Mensa1]

[sofarsogood2]

According to the attorney sites I have visited, MERS is not legally entitled to assign mortgages, only a mortgagee can. Mers is not a mortgagee- it invested no money into the loan. MERS says it can assign and can be a mortgagee- but these lawyers are saying not according to hundreds of years of laws. They are a data storage system- not a lender or a bank, therefore they cannot be named as a mortgagee. Don't know- just gonna keep my eye on this.

[Mensa1]

According to the attorney sites I have visited, MERS is not legally entitled to assign mortgages, only a mortgagee can. Mers is not a mortgagee- it invested no money into the loan. MERS says it can assign and can be a mortgagee- but these lawyers are saying not according to hundreds of years of laws. They are a data storage system- not a lender or a bank, therefore they cannot be named as a mortgagee. Don't know- just gonna keep my eye on this.

This doesn't make sense to me. The mtg was originally assigned to MERS as a matter of record keeping ease, so that each time the ownership of the underlying paper changed hands it would avoid the recording of such at the local courthouse. So in fact MERS is the listed owner or assignee of the mtg of record.

To state that any entity of record cannot legally assign the ownership of the recorded mtg, MERS or not, simply doesn't make logical sense here. Think of MERS role here as that of a Trustee. You own a property a mtg or a widget (doesn't matter what item), and you assign the right, title and interest of the item to the Trustee. How much did the TT pay you for the underlying item? NOTHING, notta, 0. At any point in the future, under the direction of the beneficial interest of the Trust we are using in this example, the TT can be directed to convey or assign the right, title and interest of the item to any third party. Pretty much the same thing that MERS is doing, assigning the mtg back to the beneficial interest, the party who really owned the equity in the mtg to begin with.

The above makes perfect sense to me, which would render the argument of these Attys who are saying that MERS cannot make a valid assignment a moot point. I can see where MERS cannot and should not be conducting the actual foreclosure in their name. They have curtailed this process for obvious reasons, but there is even a legal way that they can still do so, but I just don't see any benefit to that practice anyway, so hence their decision get out of the practice of doing so.

No expert on the MERS situation here, but well-schooled on foreclosures in many states. My opinion of the vast majority of the foreclosure defense firms is that they simply look for the least inconsistency and try to use that to create a stall, in most cases. The out and out mtg release is a rare occurance in the foreclosure defense biz. I'm just sayin.

[Mensa1]

Ok- did some research and apparently, in the opinion of a few but growing number of judges, the millions of loans with MERS named as the mortgagee may be void and null. I read through about 20 articles, decisions and legal opinions. There are multiple issues surrounding MERS and foreclosures.


Only in the past few month have they begun to get some positive rulings in these cases, which could potentially call into question the validity of millions of foreclosure suits (past and present) and current servicers rights to collect on mortgages.

sfsg: Can you be specific as to which cases (by name) you reference here? As in recent...? What eexactly do you call recently?

One word of caution when reading some of the websites containing info about rulings on foreclosures and the MERS issue... many of these sites have a vested interest in selling their product or service based on the outcome of the story that they tell. So be forewarned, not everything that you read on these internet sites, or at least the interpretation of how they tell the story, is exactly accurate.

Now if you list the cases I can break some of it down for you and add some sanity to what you are reading. There is logical explanation for a lot of what is being written out there as "disaster and the end of the mtg industry". Now, there have also been lots of mistakes made due to ultra-sloppy record keeping in the boom days of the mtg business too, namely by the Argents, Ameriquests and a host of other companies. So I am not saying that there aren't problems and some injustices, but there are also solutions to some of these issues too, but you won't read that on any of the websites that you have read to date.

[DeadManCrawling]

Not to muddle the waters too much, but:

A lot of info that is floating on the web about MERS is misconstrued, outdated, and just plain wrong.

It is true that MERS was a nightmare for lender and borrower alike at the beginning of the foreclosure crisis. There were many cases taken to court regarding MERS as mortgagee and debating the merits of this computerized assignment system. A few people did, technically, win their entire house. In practice, at least among the cases I am familiar with, the lender retained an equitable lien on the property. While they can no longer collect the mortgage payment, they CAN collect when the property is resold.

This is an immensely complicated subject-MERS-and varies so much by state, district, and even judge, that trying to understand it from a few posts on this forum, or a handful of websites, is impossible. As Mensa points out, there are also companies who are trying to scam the unwitting public by putting up websites that purport to "win people a house" free and clear. For a fee, of course. None of the sites I have seen has ever been totally clear about the legal aspects. They cannot point to concise and clear victory, because none really exist.

I am not saying it is impossible, far from it. But I am suggesting that anyone who goes down this road should have deep pockets, a lawyer that REALLY knows his/her stuff, and be prepared to still lose.

I hope that there are clear signs of either victory or defeat in the near future, because this is a very important point for so many people facing foreclosure.