My only real question is to the number of jail cells in Maryland.  Are there going to be enough?

Lawyer frauds such as this is the primary reason why remedies for foreclosure fraud MUST INCLUDE blatant wrongs that occur in courtrooms nationwide by lawyers who file foreclosure proceedings!

Foreclosure lawyers serve purposes of ensuring that property deeds become RECORDED out of homeowners’ names.  ILLEGAL FLIPPING and BLIGHTED NEIGHBORHOOD result from foreclosure fraud. Ex: [**What happens when a bank begins to foreclose on a property, then changes its mind? @ http://bit.ly/dUd0zi  **Toddler Drowned in Pool of Foreclosed Home @ http://t.co/SJJrcxg]

Lenders are NOT always the ones foreclosing on their security interests!  There are foreclosures that NEVER became returned to lenders, but were fraudulently “CREDIT BIT” by “Straw Buyers” and judicial insiders.

Also, none other than lawyers who file foreclosure cases, and record deeds (after PURPORTED foreclosures), have capacity to defraud Bankruptcy Courts as well as homeowners by filing FALSE motions to “Lift Automatic Stay” and false “Proof of Claims.”

In foreclosure fraud, foreclosure lawyers file QUICKLY file fabricated Bankruptcy court pleadings via some lender identity with absolutely NO “standing.” Thereby lawyers defeat Bankruptcy cases they have no business entering; although courts HAVE NO JURISDICTION without  “standing,” and therefore no authority to preside over sham foreclosure pleadings. *More @ http://chn.ge/eU2zAm
 

YOU ARE UNBELIEVABLE!!!!

Charlene,

When you get done patting yourself on the back maybe you should consult an attorney about this issue. You would have thought that you would have done this prior to answering any questions about something you obviously have no idea what you are talking about. You claim to have been in the industry for 25 years, if this is true, then either you are making all these false acccusations & claims for other motives or you are just plain stupid...either way it doesnt matter or excuse your behaivor. There are going to be consequences for people like you and all the attorneys that are using this for their own gain and leading consumers on.

I dont even know where to start -

1) You said that you were pleased that this paralegal had the guts to put these FACTS in the right hands.  -  FACT - Even if you believe what this paralegal is claiming, by his own admission he had no problem or issues with participating in what he is now complaining about, but it wasnt until AFTER he was laid-off that he all of sudden had what you call..GUTS & then you state that his claims are FACTS???

2) The ONLY way any deed that you claim wasn't signed by ANY trustee could be questioned is if it was signed prior to 1814....yeah that's right 1814!!!! You as a Vice- President of a title company SHOULD know this, which you probably do, but it doesn't help you with all your blogs & newspaper quotes by disclosing it, so I guess that i will have to do it.

The link to the case that addressed this issue back in 1978 is in the title section. - Fisher vs. McGuire 1978 Court of Appeals, Maryland - 282 Md. 507 (1978) 385 A.2d 211

I believe that the article specifically has a quote from the paralegal wherein he acknowledged that what he did was wrong and he admitted that he was risking his notary commission. 

The facts that I refer to are copies of the deeds filed with the complaint wherein the signatures of the attorney are very different. There facts as stated in the complaint are that the attorney whose name is subscribed to the deed is not the person who signed the deed. It was not a question of whether or not any trustee signed, but rather, a disclosure from this paralegal that the signature was not that of the person named. 

I do appreciate you taking the time to read my blogs.    

Exactly...he didnt say anything until he was laid-off! Im not saying what he claims is true or not...how could anybody? I quess it fits your agenda, so its FACT.

Read the case...IT DOESNT MATTER WHO SIGNED THE DEED!!!!

Dating with certainty from Lord Ellenborough's opinion in 1814 in Schneider v. Norris, 2 Maule & S. 286, 105 Eng. Rep. 388, it has been almost universally recognized both in England and in this country that a person's name, whether signed by another or mechanically printed, constitutes a valid signature of that person when he recognizes and appropriates it as his. And formal acknowledgment of the instrument by one whose name is signed on it by another results in the signature becoming, by adoption, that of the one who acknowledges it. The signature, in these circumstances, is as effective as if the person's hand had guided the pen over the paper. See Annot., 57 A.L.R. 525 (1928 & supplements) (collecting decisions from twenty-four jurisdictions); 3 American Law of Property § 12.58, at 302 (A. Casner ed. 1952); 4 H. Tiffany, The Law of Real Property § 1023, at 318 (3d ed. 1975). The decisions of this Court are in accord. See Dubrowin v. Schremp, 248 Md. 166, 172, 235 A.2d 722, 725 (1967); Smith v. Goldsborough, 80 Md. 49, 58-59, 30 A. 574, 575 (1894); Drury v. Young, 58 Md. 546, 553-54 (1882). The rationale for the conclusion we express here can best be explained by pointing out that the acts of formally acknowledging a deed before a state official and of delivering the document to the grantee are so positive and emphatic that the grantor is deemed to have adopted the signing, no matter 513*513 who actually performed that act, nor whether it was done with or without the grantor's consent. In other words, by completing the instrument with the final acts of acknowledgment and delivery, the grantor adopts its contents and makes the deed his in all its particulars to the same extent as if he had by his own hand written each word contained in it.^[4]

I would have thought that someone who has been doing settlements as long as you claim to have, that you would have had to know this, but if you didn't you defintely should have researched it before making the accusations you did in a newspaper.

So, Samantha, you're saying that anyone can sign anything on another person's behalf, as long as that person gives permission to do so & the document is properly notarized.    If that's so, & I read with a fair amount of interest the cases you cited, then why did the law firm involved change their mode of operation around October 2010 so that all deeds now had to be actually signed by the attorney; & not by someone else.  Was a blanket poa filed with the court giving attorney B the power to sign for attorney A somewhere along the line.   I know that if I were looking at a series of deeds with differing handwriting, purported to be signed by one individual, I would certainly raise that as an issue with my client; particularly if the documents were notarized by one particular notary public. 

I think the thrust of the article was that a MD law firm was possibly committing fraud.  Not being an attorney & not being from MD I can't possibly say if that was so.  Is the Maryland AG investigating this firm?

Because of misinformation such as this blog & attorneys that have no regard for the facts or law. They will represent anybody that wants to argue that their foreclosure was done in error. They encourage & give borrowers false hope by telling them that they are the victim, because of any possible technically that they believe was done. So, it's easier for the attorneys to change their procedure than have to argue this over & over again. Also, the attorneys use anything to stall the foreclosure while the borrowers continue to live in the home without paying their mortgage for years....thats why!

I haven't yet to date ever heard of anyone that was foreclosed on & it was proven that they had paid their mortgage and wern't in default. But, if this was to happen, then all parties involved should be fined heavily & have the book thrown at them.

People have to stop blaming others for this whole foreclosure mess & take responsibility for their own actions.

Yes, there are surely some courts who have ruled this way, as you say. But, there are just as many decisions which found differently.  

An enrolled decree will not be vacated even though obtained by the

use of forged documents, perjured testimony, or any other frauds

which are 'intrinsic' to the trial of the case itself. Underlying this

long settled rule is the principle that, once parties have had the

opportunity to present before a court a matter for investigation and

determination, and once the decision has been rendered and the

litigants, if they so choose, have exhausted every means of

reviewing it, the public policy of this stated demands that there be an

end to that litigation....This policy favoring finality and

conclusiveness can be outweighed only by a showing .that the

jurisdiction of the court has been imposed upon, or that the

prevailing party, by some extrinsic or collateral fraud, has prevented

a fair submission of the controversy.'

In Massachusetts, any document presented for recording has to be signed by the person whose name is on the document.  Any other person signing on that person's behalf has to also present for recording a notarized power of attorney & an affidavit.  My point is, & has been all along, that law firms have to follow the laws in an exact fashion - just as the banks expect all borrowers to follow the laws in an exact fashion.  As far as I'm concerned, I don't really care if borrowers expect to weasel out of a foreclosure on a technicality, I am annoyed with law firms that try & weasel out of doing their work correctly in order to turn a quick profit.  I have worked my way through poorly drawn foreclosure documents for quite a while.  When lawyers don't follow the rules it creates complete chaos for the next person down the line.  Some of the foreclosure documents I've looked at are horror shows, with multiple, incredibly careless mistakes.  One foreclosure deed I looked at  was signed by an employee of a servicing company that had no obvious connection to the foreclosure.  The following foreclosure affidavit (recorded directly after the f/d)  was signed by the same person, as an employee of a completely different company acting on behalf of the company who signed the f/deed. 

    Many years ago I watched an interview with I think a high school principal, who remortgaged her house in a big way to send her only child to an Ivy.  The damn fool never read any of the documents; couldn't tell you what the interest rate was on the loan; and, amazingly enough, had no idea that she was signing an adjustable rate mortgage.  She blathered away on camera that she had no idea that anyone would do that to an American citizen, blah, blah, blah.   Possibly she deserved to lose her home due to sheer stupidity; but my point is that  law firms handling the work have a duty to their clients, the banks, to do the work correctly.  Their stupidity and/or laziness, like not checking the foreclosure deed & correcting it so that the person signing actually had some connection to the foreclosure has cost everyone bigtime.  It gives people, like that woman who signed her life, away ,false  hope that she won't have to move out of her house.  And, more tellingly, it sends a message that the rules only apply to some people & situations & that the rules don't really matter a whole lot when there's money to be made. 

Your interpretation of the Fisher v. McGuire case is clearly erroneous.  As an initial matter, your interpretation would mean that Powers of Attorney are not needed in Maryland.  You appear to be arguing that you can sign someone else name to anything, and it is valid, so long as the real grantor adopts the signature as his own.  While I am not well versed in Maryland law, I do not believe this to be the case. 

It is a basic tenet of the law of agency that if the act is required to be done in writing, by the Statute of Frauds, the agency must be created in writing as well, before the the agent can do the act on behalf of the principal.  In other words, since a deed must be in writing, an agent cannot sign on the principals behalf unless the power of attorney is also in writing.  By your interpretation, no power of attorney would be required at all.

What is glaringly absent from your analysis of the Fisher case is the fact that Miss Grace, the person whose name appeared on the deed, was present and acknowledged the signature on the document, in the presence of the notary.  Here is the part of the case you missed:

Either somebody signed that deed and she adopted it as her own signature before the notary or the notary had to help her with the signing of the deed because manifestly that isn't her signature. She didn't write her name that way. It just isn't something which she wrote. We are prepared to say and we are prepared to find as a fact that she did not in fact do that writing unassisted. I am not prepared to say she didn't have her hand on the pen or something but clearly (from) the expert testimony and the evidence of anyone who wishes to compare these legitimate signatures with that one (, the writing is not hers.) No evidence to rebut or contradict the (handwriting) expert's testimony has been offered except the vague and imperfect recollection of the notary public, whose testimony we think is valueless beyond the fact that her name appears on the document and she did in fact go (to the McGuire home) and Miss Grace did, in fact, acknowledge this deed as her deed in front of her. More than that, (the notary) obviously had no present recollection about any of this. . . . The only thing she is able to say is that she went there, she went in the room with Miss Grace and Miss Grace said here is the deed. This is my deed, please put your notary seal on it. We think that is tantamount to saying I validate this instrument and we think that regardless of whether or not she was the one that signed it, that deed was during her lifetime acknowledged and ratified by her. And for this reason, we think that the deed is a valid deed.

In the current issue, upon which Charlene Perry commented, the affidavit clearly states that the attorney, whose name appears on the deeds, never even examined the deeds in question.  Clearly he did not appear before the notary and adopt the signature as his own.

Further, it appears that this attorney was to sign in his capacity as a trustee (if I am understanding the facts correctly).  A fiduciary generally cannot delegate his duties to another, unless the document under which he derives his authority expressly give him this right.  I don't think we know enough about the facts of this case to say for sure, but this might be another issue that could have prevented him from allowing another to sign on his behalf.

So, Samantha, your harsh criticism of Charlene was misplaced, to say the least.  Before you call someone "just plain stupid," you really should be darn sure you know what you are talking about. 

And, to Charlene... congrats on the nice write up in the paper. 

Best,
Robert A. Franco
SOURCE OF TITLE

Robert

Thank you for the analysis and your kind congrats. 

As I am not an attorney I would never attempt to speak to a specific case and it's effect on an issue I am discussing.  I leave that to the attorneys and the courts.

You are correct though in that the attorney was to have signed in his capacity as Trustee and it has always been my belief that that capacity could not be delegated to others.

In response to Samantha's statements relating to my "agenda" I sincerely don't have an agenda but to share information with the professionals on this site who may be come across these issues if they are doing any work in Maryland, and more importantly, because my ultimate goal daily is to be able to offer a title insurance policy to the purchasing party in an REO transaction I feel it necessary to stay abreast of the current state of foreclosures in Maryland.  When these things are brought to my attention I find it necessary and prudent to try to find out as much as I can about them so that I can then go to underwriting counsel for opinions and guidance.

As is evidenced by my numerous blogs and discussions, I am always ready to hear another opinion, and I don't recall ever being so stubborn as to suggest that my opinion is right and that no other opinion would even be considered.

Additionally, I did not make any accusations in the paper or anywhere else. I simply commented on the allegations made by the paralegal.  

These posts are extraordinary when considering the practical implementation of digital signatures! Who clicked the mouse or tapped the Enter key??

You can't visually distinguish the signature differences with public/private encryption which is a basic evidentiary foundation for "did the person sign the document? - the signatures don't look the same!". That aspect would be completely gone with the absolute cold algorithmic logic of "digital signatures".

Robert points out the fundamentals of a person authorized by government to take the oath of another to the execution of an instrument. However the mark/signature is derived, we can't remove the confirmation by another. It has to be authenticated!

Imagine the examination/cross-examination of today vs. tomorrow!

Today:

"Mr. Signor, I hand you Exhibit A. Is that your signature thereon"?

"Ms. Notary, I hand you Exhibit A. Is that your signature"?

Proposed:

"Mr. Signor, Mr. Digital Signature Expert has testified that he/she examined the mathematical basis upon which your digital signature is attached to Exhibit A and has authenticated the Public/Private Key Encryption algorithm establishing your execution of the Exhibit A document. Do you remember attaching this digital signature to the Exhibit A document? Do you remember hitting the Enter key or clicking the mouse establishing your execution?"

It would seem almost impossible to establish evidence of which Enter key tap or mouse click actually binds the execution, much less who happened to do the tapping and clicking!!

I have never been a proponent of the "digital signature," particularly for important legal paperwork.  It might work making an online purchase, but not when legal rights are at stake.  It does depend to a very great extent on the reliability of notaries public.  However, given the current environment where so many notaries are having their authority revoked, and even admitting to violating the acknowledgment laws, it seems to be a pretty big risk.

Now, before any notaries take offense to that... let me acknowledge (no pun intended) that there are certainly good ones out there.  I am a notary myself and I play by the rules, as I am sure most do.  But, when the ONLY way to authenticate a signature is to rely on a notary we do not know, I do not feel comfortable with a digital signature.

Digital signatures I fear will become more and more a problem as time goes by.  I too am a Notary Public and I too play by the rules.  I actually just read not too long ago about notaries public who were going to able to do signings via the web. Not only does that give rise to any number of questions as to the validity of the "proof" of indenity offered, it also gives rise to the possiblity that people may be executing document under duress.  There's more on this subject in a post in the discussion section of this site. 

Robo-signging is a red herring.  Most people are missing the point entirely.

Ask yourself this question?  

Why are the mills and  servicers submitting Fraudulent affidavits in the first place?

It's quite simple, in 90% of the cases, they CAN'T prove they even own the loan using the traditional paperwork method.  They DON'T have the original, they don't have an assignment, they don't even have accurate accounting entries.

Why?   Cause most of these loans where diced up and packaged together MULTIPLE times.  IF you don't want to get caught, guess what?  Lose the paper!  That is exactly what has happen.

Tell the investors that the "deadbeat" homeowner defaulted, collect your swap insurance, foreclosure and collect a FREE house from the homeowner using an illegal CREDIT bid.  Yes, it's illegal to use a CREDIT BID if you can"t prove you are the CREDITOR.

So these so-called lenders, take the investors money, Collect on the Insurance, take a TARP handout, AND get a FREE house.  Now tell me are YOU still worried about a homeowner possibly getting a FREE house.

Greatest Scam in human history.  

Meanwhile, run some interference by telling everyone that perjury is a "technicality" in the paperwork.   Like 7 million homes foreclosed is just a technicality.   This perfect storm was CREATED.  WAKE UP.

Everyone on here knows that MERS is a joke and can't be relied upon to find the Holder in Due Course.   Garbage IN/Gargage OUT.  This is WAY deeper than some homeowner trying to get out of paying his/her mortgage on a "technicality"

Mr Franco hit on a very salient issue.  So many times when a proponent of a certain ism cites to a case in alleged spport, a careful reading of that case will undermine the argument.  It really p.o.'s  me when I find a case has actually been misquoted. 

before you attack those "deadbeat" homeowners who should "stop blaming and take responsibility"  take a dose of your own medicine.

Surely you must have a full understanding (look it up in Blacks) of commercial law, tax law, trust law and accounting before commenting on "deadbeat homeowners" as you imply they are. 

The media, controlled by corporate interests, the White House and the banks are useful idiots for perpetuating that myth and you drank their Kool Aid until you tongue turned red.

Here's a simple question since you seem to be so knowledgable and must know commercial law, trust law, tax law and accounting.

Did you or anyone crapping on those "deadbeats" bother to inquire as to the 1099 OID that was filed with the Internal Revenue Service reporting the "source of funds" you claimed were borrowed and never paid back ?

Simple question really. If you have no clue what I'm talking about, you have no business sticking your nose where it doesn't belong, being so "knowledgable" and citing cases from 1814.  

Surely if you are legal "scholar" that can go back that far in time, surely you know Carpenter v Longan from 1872. Look it up. If you missed that one, surely you are not as knowledgable as you claim to be.

I believe Newt Gingrich said "when you have the facts you don't have to scream.."

You really should be more careful, because we all have a common law duty of care to others before running off at the mouth..