The West Coast Foreclosure Show with Charles Marshall: The Power of FOIA requests to uncover Foreclosure Data with Eric Mains

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Tonight Southern California attorney Charles Marshall will host the new West Coast Radio Show with Attorney Charles Marshall with guest Eric Mains, former FDIC Team Leader.

The West Coast Radio Show will run the first and third Thursday of each month, while Neil Garfield will continue to host the second and fourth Thursday.  This change will allow us to bring more relevant foreclosure news from both Coasts, and in-between.

Neil Garfield has been working diligently on his technological platform that he hopes will empower both attorneys and pro se litigants facing foreclosure to access automated court documents.  He will also publish his latest foreclosure defense book in the Fall.

This episode features Eric Mains, a former FDIC Team Leader who resigned when he discovered the federal government was unwilling to go after banks that were participating in illegal conduct.  Mains studied to be a lawyer, but ended up as a banker with large regional firms like PNC and National City. He was a vice president of special assets, dealing with commercial loans for multifamily housing units.  If anyone knows how this game is played it is Eric Mains.

For more information about Eric Mains and his foreclosure battle see Vice article here.

Eric Mains currently has a writ of cert that has been submitted to SCOTUS appealing a recent decision in his 7th circuit court of appeals case where the federal court ruled that it lacked jurisdiction to hear his case under the Rooker Feldman doctrine.  Eric is using the FOIA laws to obtain data in his own case. He was recently able to stop a sheriff’s sale on his own home just 5 hours after he issued a complaint to the Indiana State Attorney General’s office supported by an FOAI request submitted just weeks before.

The Power of FOIAs to uncover Foreclosure Data

By Eric Mains, former FDIC Team Leader

Read about Eric Mains here.

LPS Consent Judgement

In the fight for discovery of information related to wrongful foreclosure actions, many attorneys and consumers find that they run into a gamut of obstacles preventing them from garnering basic facts about what happened with their loan transactions. This ranges from the cost of trying to conduct discovery, willful non-disclosure by opposing parties, judges who either hinder needed discovery or bounce cases on motions to dismiss before discovery can be obtained, and of course, the often-heard objection from opposing counsel that items requested in discovery are somehow “privileged” or contain non-disclosable data.

Many cases are withdrawn or settled based solely on the impending threat of discovery actually being allowed by the few judges who side with homeowners to pursue the disclosure of relevant information in their cases.

While discovery in individual cases can be complex, burdensome, and costly, one simple and easy resource that can lead to potentially large benefits on a mass scale outside of traditional discovery is the use of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to seek data held by government institutions.

Many consumers and their attorneys may scoff and assume FOIA requests are not relevant to their individual cases, so why bother? There are a few reasons for bothering. First, depending on the players involved in your individual case, there may be data that is held by governmental agencies that can be obtained by FOIA requests more cheaply and easily than can be obtained otherwise, and who knows what you may find? It may be relevant to you, it may not, BUT don’t assume anything!

Second, the State agencies such as the Attorney General’s offices have already done the legwork of squeezing the servicers and obtaining potentially useful and relevant information for prosecuting offenders.  Why not use it if it’s there? There could be names, dates, and other data of use, and who knows where that information may lead or if it may become of use later.

Lastly, the information you uncover may not just save you, it may save someone else…and even if it doesn’t help you specifically, you may save hundreds of other people’s homes with the data you uncover. What if someone else a few months down the road doing a similar FOIA request/research uncovers data that saves you? This goes to a “crowd funding” concept of data mining…but more on that in a bit.

While it is true that the federal government has been inclined to do everything in its power to try and block documentation related to large bank misconduct and settlements it has reached with national banks, not all useful and relevant information is held solely by federal agencies or regulators.

In the case of mortgage loan servicers, such as Ocwen, LPS/Black Knight, Green Tree, Caliber, etc., State AG’s were also very active in litigation that reached various settlements. Unlike federal entities, State entities who have data relevant to wrongful actions committed against consumers may not be as tight lipped, or as able and willing to avoid the release of information under their various FOIA/Open Records statutes. A good list of the various State FOIA laws can be found at this website: http://www.nfoic.org/state-freedom-of-information-laws .

The good news is that with a little detective work, if relevant information is suspected to be held by any of your state governmental agencies, a simple fax/letter you can send for a few dollars requesting said information is all that it takes to get the ball rolling. Most turn around periods for a response on such requests is around 30 days.

So, what if they refuse to release the records you request citing various privileges? What if they say they only can release a few of the records?  Without going into long detail, just the response from the agency in and of itself may confirm that they do indeed hold suspected information of use to yourself (or other homeowners) whether they are willing to release the records or not. Even a partial release of records from the governmental agency involved may leave a bread crumb trail leading to other records that may become useful. If an agency does unlawfully or unreasonably withhold records, it may turn out that going to court to force release of the relevant records receives a much more consumer friendly response under FOIA laws as well.

Another potentially beneficial side effect- the results of the FOIA may also get the attention of local news agencies/other consumer advocacy groups if brought to their attiention. Nothing garners attention like smoke, and other interested parties may be inclined to file FOIA request of their own when they find out that there appears to be something…. some records, some data, that appears to be inherently newsworthy and publicly disclosable…but that it is being unreasonably withheld for some strange reason…..hmmmmm. If it’s one thing banks and uncooperative political entities are afraid of, it’s the nations true highest court–that of public opinion and its instantly damaging spotlight.

One last point to remember is that in an age of crowd sourcing, crowd funding, and social media driven group campaigns, something as cheap and powerful as a mass group FOIA campaign to release and share information should be central in helping to fight against wrongful foreclosures. The banks and servicers are unendingly willing to go into court and lie and produce false documentation, while the courts turn a blind eye most times…. but keeping up a lie and producing false documents leaves a trail, and it’s a hundred times harder to keep up a lie and cover for it than to simply be armed with facts and the truth.

Things start to slip, documents come out, and the next thing you know you have a smoking gun and evidence of mass fraud that can’t be ignored or denied. The simple truth of the matter is we don’t know where some of the breadcrumbs discovered in FOIA requests might lead, or how they might help us all. There are plenty of angry consumers willing to yell at TV sets, send out angry Tweets or join blog communities, but not many that are willing to invest time in actually doing something that has potential mass benefit and a real potential impact. FOIA requests are one way to do that cheaply and effectively, and it FORCES the governmental agency involved to respond to YOUR demand, usually for under $5 on your end. Where else can you get that kind of bang for your buck in an age of unaccountable government, media, and courts?

Tags: Charles Marshall West Coast Foreclosure Hour, Eric mains, foreclosure fraud, Neil Garfield Show
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