Lender Processing Services, the mortgage servicing industry support company based in Jacksonville, was one of the many loan servicers engaged in the robo-signing scandal that has rocked the mortgage world over the past few years. Essentially, robo-signing is largely what it sounds like. As loan servicers faced mounting piles of unpaid mortgages, they decided they didn't have the time to actually review the documents or properly sign them. Instead, many employees were signing each other's names or using other forms of fraud to make the documents look legitimate. Then, the documents were filed in court and used to foreclose on peoples' homes.
But fraudulently signing documents and filing them in court is illegal. Unfortunately, the problem was so wide-spread that, in many areas, the solution was to simply accept the word of the lenders that they would stop filing fraudulent documents. However Nevada, one of the states hardest hit by the national mortgage crisis, has taken a tougher stance regarding robo-signing. Recently, prosecutors in Nevada filed a 606-count indictment against two LPS employees for fraudulently signing documents and directing other LPS employees to file tens of thousands of false documents.
That was not a typo: these two employees in one state are allegedly responsible, at least in part, for tens of thousands of false documents. This is the first time in the country that criminal charges are being filed for the robo-signing scandal. LPS says, though there have been some problems, all of the documents it filed were properly authorized. In other words, they're admitting that some of the documents were flawed, but they maintain that none of the foreclosures were wrongful. As LPS is the nation's larger provider of mortgage processing services, it will be extremely interesting to see how this case plays out. While LPS is based on Jacksonville, it has offices nationwide to support to lenders based in different regions of the U.S.
Keep reading a Florida Foreclosure Defense Lawyers Blog for further updates. If you are currently or will be facing foreclosure, make sure to contact a Florida Foreclosure Defense Attorney to determine what foreclosure defenses may be available in your case.
