A Florida foreclosure attorney who categorized Nationwide Title Clearing (NTC), a document and services provider for the residential mortgage industry, as a robo-signer and perpetrator of foreclosure fraud on his blog has retracted his comments. Attorney Matthew Weidner wrote on his blog that he regretted making statements that implied NTC was guilty of wrongdoing.Click to continue

Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan has filed legislation designed to reform the foreclosure process to protect homeowners. Madigan’s legislation is the first of its kind in the country to address revelations that major banks and mortgage giants recklessly “robo-signed” foreclosure fillings across the country. The bill would significantly tighten the requirements for affidavits filed in foreclosure proceedings to ensure their accuracy.Click to continue

The "robo-signing" scandal that has exposed illegal practices by servicers of mortgage loans has also showed the urgent need to reform a broken system that is plagued with abuses, lacks adequate resources and has pushed countless homeowners toward foreclosure. That's the message that Diane Thompson, a lawyer for the National Consumer Law Center (NCLC) delivered in testimony to the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs at a hearing titled, Click to continue

Charlie Scharf, chief executive of JPMorgan Chase & Company's retail bank, has announced that the bank will again begin filing paperwork in two weeks on nearly 127,000 foreclosures that were suspended due to suspicious filing actions. Last month, court documents showed that Chase employees were signing off on foreclosure paperwork without proper review for accuracy, thus giving birth to the "robo-signer" in many mortgage servicing foreclosure departments.Click to continue

California Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA), who chairs the House Financial Services Housing and Community Opportunity Subcommittee, criticized the Bank of America following its announcement that it would resume foreclosures on more than 100,000 mortgages by next week in the 23 states where court approval for foreclosures is required. She also expressed concern about lender and servicer GMAC Mortgage, which also announced an end to its freeze on foreclosures.Click to continue

In response to reports that Bank of America plans to restart foreclosures on borrowers in 23 states where issues of possibly fraudulent documentation have been raised, Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray has offered the following statement: "While I would not presume to speak for all 50 state attorneys general, from my own standpoint, we will want to be very careful in reviewing whatever their revised process purports to be.Click to continue

Through a request for a preliminary injunction filed in the Lucas County Court of Common Pleas, Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray is seeking to prevent GMAC Mortgage LLC from completing foreclosure sales in Ohio based on faulty affidavits. Cordray filed suit Oct. 6 against GMAC; its parent, Ally Financial Inc.; and one of its employees, Jeffrey Stephan, also in the Lucas County Court of Common Pleas.Click to continue

UPDATE: Mortgage Electronic Registration System (MERS) has released a statement in regards to JPMorgan Chase's earlier announcement that it was no longer using MERS: "JPMorgan Chase is a valued member of MERS. They currently have their correspondent loans registered on the MERS System. They do not, nor have they ever, registered their retail loans on the MERS System. As members of MERS and for loans registered on the MERS System, banks have the option of foreclosing in their own name, or MERS foreclosing for them.Click to continue