Mortgage paperwork mess: Next housing shock?

CBS 60 Minutes Updates Story

 By SCOTT PELLEY, 60 MINUTES

Lynn Szymoniak, a Florida lawyer who is also an expert in white collar crime and document examination (and a friend of ours) appeared on the CBS news magazine in April of this year.  60 Minutes has now updated that story.

New information includes the fact that people who were high school kids were signing documents as vice-presidents of banks, which of course they weren't.  The people who signed these dummied-up documents created to facilitate the foreclosure of many Americans' homes were paid $10 an hour to do that work, but had to sign a minimum of 350 documents an hour, a figure which clearly means they never read anything they signed.  Other employees notarized the documents, despite the certain knowlege that they were NOT signed by the persons named (many different people signed as Linda Green, an actual lady who's name was picked for these documents because it was short and easy to spell, facilitating the use of multiple signers).

Of course, at this point, Americans can hardly be shocked any more, there have been so many revelations.

 
PHOTO CREDIT:
Palm Beach Post

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TOM’S COMMENTARY:

This has been a wild ride for the American homeowner.  The banks fueled the real estate bubble by funding mortgages which they knew would fail, making many billions of dollars in the process.  They sold the mortgages, again and again, in the process of securitizing them, but chose to ignore legal and industry standards in documenting those sales, in order to avoid having to give Americans jobs handling the required paperwork.  Now, they present themselves as victims of this fraud and abuse.

After the American taxpayer bailed them out, a few public servants are trying to hold the banks feet to the fire, and protect homeowners from the violence flowing from the banks misdeeds, but the politicians are moving swiftly to complicate that effort.

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