Feb 2012 National Mortgage Settlement

NAAG - National Association of Attorney Generals


02/10/2012
By Richard Kahn, FPG-USA's senior qualifying expert

The National Association of Attorney Generals has culminated a 50 state wide investigation into the top 5 lenders conducting wrongful foreclosures using fabricated false documentation, robo-signing, dual tracks to foreclose while feigning int erst in loan modification and failing to plead authority to foreclose in non-judicial states. But these are only some of the protections.

The settlement agreement is an important reference for those borrowers and attorneys whom FPG-USA serves to empower our discovery as evidence for use in non-judicial court process states. These are states where the mortgage is represented by a Deed of Trust and a Trustee issues a series of notices including substitution, default, election to sell, sale, and trustee's deed. In these state courts foreclosure is by agreement in the deed of trust and not under the protection of a court action first to foreclose.

This settlement allows homeowners to still fight wrongful unlawfully brought foreclosures on their own and places settlement standards that we can reference in our evidentiary findings reports in non-judicial states.

Admittedly, there are some settlement features that may be felt to less than acceptable but the power of a stipulated agreement with settled protections going forward is added ammunition for those looking to fight foreclosures with hard evidence of wrongdoing and not simply conjecture or hearsay.

We applaud the Attorney Generals for their fight and the wins they achieved in the process.


FPG-USA specializes in lender compliance analysis. Direct inquiries to info@fpg-usa.com.