Hunter vs Aurora: Fla 1st DCA Business Records Gets Tougher

Show me any other period in American history where banks lost so many cases.

see http://caselaw.findlaw.com/fl-district-court-of-appeal/1664754.html

The heat on the banks has been steadily increasing for the last three years and has increased at an increasing rate during the past 18 months. More and more banks are losing in what the bank lawyers call a “Simple, standard foreclosure action.” Show me any other period in American history where banks lost so many cases. There is obviously nothing simple and nothing standard about these foreclosures that have caused ruination of some 25 million people living in around 9 million homes.

If things were simple, we wouldn’t be looking at musical chairs in servicing, plaintiffs and “holders.” If things were standard, the creditor would come forth with clear proof that it paid for this loan. Nobody I know has EVER seen that. I have written about why. Suffice it to say, if there was a real creditor who could come forward and end the argument, they would have done so.

Two years ago the Hunter case was decided. The court was presented with a panoply of the usual smoke and mirrors. The court took on the issue of the business records exception as a guide to the trial judges in the 1st District and to the trial lawyers who defend homeowners in foreclosure. This is a sample of the part of the analysis we do. Here are some quotes and comments from the case:

Aurora alleged in its “Complaint to Foreclose Mortgage and to Enforce Lost Loan Documents” that it owned and held the promissory note and the mortgage, [note that the allegation is never made that Aurora was the owner of the debt or was the lender. Why not? Who is the actual creditor?]

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original owner of the note and mortgage was MortgageIT, and that MortgageIT subsequently assigned both to Aurora. A letter dated January 27, 2007, from Aurora to Mr. Hunter entitled, “Notice of Assignment, Sale, or Transfer of Servicing Rights,” directed him to remit mortgage payments to Aurora beginning February 1, 2007. The “Corporate Assignment of Mortgage” executed on June 11, 2007, and recorded on January 8, 2008, showed MortgageIT as the assignor and Aurora as the assignee. [MortgageIT was a thinly capitalized originator/ broker who could not have made all the loans it originated. Hence the presumption should be that it didn’t loan money to Hunter. Logically it follows that it never owned the debt and should not have had its name on the note or the mortgage. Nor did the source of funds ever convey ownership to MortgageIT. So what value or validity is there in looking at an assignment or endorsement or even delivery from Mortgage IT? And given that behavior (see below) do we not have circumstances in which the paperwork is suspect? Should that be enough to withhold the statutory presumptions attendant to “holding” a note?]

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To establish that it held and had the right to enforce the note as of April 3, 2007, Aurora sought to put in evidence certain computer-generated records: one, a printout entitled “Account Balance Report” dated “1/30/2007,” indicating Mr. Hunter’s loan was sold to Lehman Brothers—of which Aurora is a subsidiary and for which Aurora services loans—and payment in full was received on “12/20/2006;” the second, a “consolidated notes log” printout dated “7/18/2007” indicating the physical note and mortgage were sent—it is not readily clear to whom—via two-day UPS on April 18, 2007. Neither document reflects that it was generated by MortgageIT. -[Interesting that Aurora is identified as a subsidiary of Lehman who was in bankruptcy in October of 2008. Aurora usually represents itself as a stand-alone company which is obviously not true. Equally obvious (see discussion above) is that the reason why Mortgage IT was not identified on the printout is that it had nothing to do with the actual loan money — neither payment of the loan as a lender nor payment for the loan from the homeowner. Mortgage IT, for all intents and purposes, in the real world, was never part of this deal.]

Section 90.803(6) provides one such exception for business records, if the necessary foundation is established:

A memorandum, report, record, or data compilation, in any form, of acts, events, conditions, opinion, or diagnosis, made at or near the time by, or from information transmitted by, a person with knowledge, if kept in the course of a regularly conducted business activity and if it was the regular practice of that business activity to make such memorandum, report, record, or data compilation, all as shown by the testimony of the custodian or other qualified witness, or as shown by a certification or declaration that complies with paragraph (c) and s. 90.902(11), unless the sources of information or other circumstances show lack of trustworthiness. (e.s.) – [THIS is the point of my article. Under current circumstances both in the Hunter case and in the public domain the court should have considered the fact that the parties were well known to have fabricated, forged and otherwise misrepresented documents, together with outright lying about the existence of underlying transactions that would track the paperwork upon which courts have heaping one presumption after another. My argument is that Aurora should not have been given the benefit of the doubt (i.e. a presumption) but rather should have been required to prove each part of its case. My further argument is that virtually none of the foreclosure cases should allow for presumptions in evidence after the massive and continuing settlements for fraud relating to these residential mortgages. If this doesn’t show lack of trustworthiness, then what would?]

Tags: Aurora, business records exception, disclosure, foreclosure defense, foreclosure offense, fraud, hearsay, Lehman, MORTGAGEIT, securitization
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