Hurry! Contact your Attorney General about the LPS Consent Judgement NOW!!

Review from The West Coast Foreclosure Show with Charles Marshall: The LPS Consent Judgement and the Power of FOIA Requests broadcast on August 24, 2017.

Note: This is not legal advice but for educational purposes only.  Hire an attorney.

On Thursday’s West Coast Foreclosure show, Eric Mains, a former FDIC team leader, and investigator Bill Paatalo joined California attorney Charles Marshall on his West Coast Foreclosure Show that is broadcast twice monthly on behalf of Neil Garfield.   Eric Mains originally introduced the FOIA LPS concept during the August 3, 2017 broadcast here.

Mains urged listeners to immediately contact their state AG offices in order to obtain information about the LPS/Black Knight consent judgement and to demand answers why LPS is not in compliance with the judgement.  The information you discover may allow you to file suit on a prior foreclosure, or provide an opportunity to obtain information that will help you in current litigation.

The government estimates that 80% of all foreclosures processed by LPS between 2008 and 2010 had defects and that LPS interfered with the attorney-client (servicer) relationship in order to foreclose quickly and illegally.  The servicers and their attorneys are aware of the judgement and cannot claim that they didn’t know that robosigning was occurring- it is spelled out in the consent judgement.  What does this mean to the homeowner who has been illegally foreclosed upon with fraudulent documents manufactured by LPS?

If you are impacted by an attorney or servicer (or both) that utilized the LPS’s services, including its software system, you should file an FOIA request with your state’s attorney general.   You can contact your state AG’s office by phone, mail or email.  The cost of an FOIA is typically around five-dollars.

In your letter, you should request specific information to include:

1. Has your office been receiving quarterly compliance reports as required in the consent judgement?
2. How many people in the state were impacted by LPS’s illegal practices to include fabricated notes and assignments, forged documents or unreliable documents created for the purpose of foreclosing?
3. What percentage of the funds the state received from the consent judgement have been used to help citizens of the state? Please provide a distribution report of the allocation of these funds.
4. Request copies of all quarterly reports and correspondence.
5. How did the individual servicers comply with the consent judgement? What were their duties to comply?
6. If you accepted money from the settlement, why was no follow-up done on the consent judgement to confirm that servicers and their attorneys were in compliance?
7. Why are these fabricated documents still polluting the public records of this state?
8. Will future homebuyers be vulnerable if they discover their title is clouded by a prior fraudulent note, assignment, endorsement or allonge that was not remediated?

An example of the initial letter Eric Mains sent to the Indiana Attorney General’s office can be found here: FOIA Request AG’s Office.  Please edit the document and insert information relevant to your state and your needs.  The DEADLINE to submit FOIAs regarding the consent judgement is January 31, 2018- so time is of the essence!

LPS/Black Knight was ordered to remediate forgeries and assignments and to notify people affected by the robosigning of documents.  There is no indication this has been done.  Although Linda Green was the most famous robosigner at LPS, and her signature was used on millions of documents, LPS employed hundreds of robosigners who were forging signatures on fabricated documents. It is likely your loan documents may have been created by LPS.  Attorney Charles Marshall recommends that everyone read the Lynn Symoniak lawsuit against LPS to understand exactly how LPS operated between 2008 and 2013.

According to Marshall, attorneys who, “blatantly went in front of a judge with forged documents that should have been remediated and proceeded with the foreclosure anyways” are guilty of fraudulent behavior and recommends that homeowners should discuss this matter with an attorney even if they no longer have their home.

LPS/BlackKnight retained the attorney network used by the loan servicers.  The attorneys had certain rights and responsibilities and most likely knew soon after working with the LPS network that they were using fabricated and forged documents, and even after the consent judgement continued using documents to foreclose that had not been remediated per the consent judgement, and should have been.

FOIA requests provide a unique opportunity to access documents that have already been identified as problematic by federal regulatory agencies.  Not only that, the LPS consent judgement was signed by all 50 state attorney generals.  Homeowners should unite and demand to know why the remediations were not carried through, if attorneys continued to use fraudulent documents to foreclose, how the money received was distributed, and why the lenders failed to file quarterly reports regarding their compliance with the judgement on a quarterly basis.

There is a potential Pandora’s Box to be opened since 80% of all foreclosures between 2008 and 2010 (and perhaps longer) utilized fabricated LPS documents that were never remediated.  There were literally hundreds of thousands of wrongful foreclosures completed with fraudulent documents that pollute the county records.

LPS retained attorneys for its network from 2008 until 2013 when they were forced to stop the practice.  There is a good chance that the law firm who processed your foreclosure lawsuit used LPS’s illegal foreclosure services.  The consent judgement states that LPS was too involved in the outcome of attorneys in their network, and this resulted in obstruction.  You may have a private cause of action including fraud on the court if LPS “assisted” with a signature or your foreclosure involved an unauthorized signer.

Most Attorney Generals took the money and ran. This is a public policy nightmare that has not been resolved.   LPS paid the financial penalties to the state AG offices, but it appears it  made no effort to remediate the fabricated documents,  file quarterly reports, and perhaps may not have altered their operating policies as required by the judgement.  Only by demanding information via FOIA requests will light be shed on LPS’s overall compliance.

Investigator Bill Paatalo, who is an expert on foreclosure matters, sheds some light on how LPS BlackKnight operated.  LPS planned regional territories throughout the United States.  They then went around the country targeting law firms that would be a good fit for their proprietary foreclosure platform.  LPS would receive requests from loan servicers who wanted a foreclosure attorney referral.  LPS played matchmaker between servicer and and LPS network attorney.

One of LPS’s primary metrics was grading their attorney networks on how fast they could foreclose.  Firms that were top performing foreclosure mills received acknowledgement of their performance in the LPS newsletters (see an example here: LPS Newsletter October 2007)- and may have even received performance incentives in cash, trips, etc.….

If you were harmed by a servicer or its attorney, it is recommended that you immediately start demanding information about the LPS consent judgment.  There are 50 state attorney generals who should be bombarded with FOIA requests while the window is still open.  Homeowners should then share notes and make efforts to hold their state AG offices accountable.

There are approximately 2 million fraudulent documents in the public record that don’t appear to have been remediated by LPS.  Although LPS was to issue corrective assignments- there is no proof this was done.  YOU have until JANUARY 31, 2018 to get your FOIA requests rolling.  Time is of the essence!  Call the media, your state representatives and anyone you can think of to demand that your state AG comply with the consent judgement.  If you suspect you lost your home to fraudulent LPS docs or that the servicer’s attorney used fraudulent documents in litigation- you may have a private cause of action.  In most states you have at least 3 years to sue for Fraud once you discover the fraud.

CONTACT YOUR AG TODAY AND PLEASE SHARE YOUR FINDINGS WITH OTHER HOMEOWNERS, STATE REPRESENTATIVES AND FEDERAL AGENCIES- AND DEMAND THAT LPS/BLACKKNIGHT REMEDIATE, REPORT and demonstrate COMPLIANCE.

Again- here is a simple FOIA letter you can edit and send to your state Attorney General (thank you to Eric Mains for providing this template): FOIA Request AG’s Office.

For additional information please see these blog articles:

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