Robo-signers: Mortgage experience not necessary, page 1

Robo-signers: Mortgage experience not necessary

NEW YORK (AP) -- In an effort to rush through thousands of home foreclosures since 2007, financial institutions and their mortgage servicing departments hired hair stylists, Walmart floor workers and people who had worked on assembly lines and installed them in "foreclosure expert" jobs with no formal training, a Florida lawyer says. In depositions released Tuesday, many of those workers testified that they barely knew what a mortgage was. Some couldn't define the word "affidavit." Others didn't know what a complaint was, or even what was meant by personal property. Most troubling, several said they knew they were lying when they signed the foreclosure affidavits and that they agreed with the defense lawyers' accusations about document fraud.

(article)

That's really great. Just like the housing bubble, these banks have turned the industry into a sweatshop factory once again.

And what really pisses me off...

"The mortgage servicers hired people who would never question authority," said Peter Ticktin, a Deerfield Beach, Fla., lawyer who is defending 3,000 homeowners in foreclosure cases. As part of his work, Ticktin gathered 150 depositions from bank employees who say they signed foreclosure affidavits without reviewing the documents or ever laying eyes on them -- earning them the name "robo-signers."

I know many qualified people who worked in underwriting, banking, appraisal and other professions related to the industry who are well qualified but are out of a job and these banks are pretty much hiring people off the street to save a buck without caring that they have no idea what they are doing.

I guess it is too much to ask for the foreclosure process to be run by individuals that know what they are doing and know what is required to perform their job. Instead the banks rush to churn the real estate merry-go-round, throw people out of their homes, and pad their executive bonuses with the money saved and money made.

The depositions paint a surreal picture of foreclosure experts who didn't understand even the most elementary aspects of the mortgage or foreclosure process -- even though they were entrusted as the records custodians of homeowners' loans. In one deposition taken in Houston, a foreclosure supervisor with Litton Loan couldn't define basic terms like promissory note, mortgagee, lien, receiver, jurisdiction, circuit court, plaintiff's assignor or defendant.

Holy crap, this is turning a very important part of our economy into a Chinese assembly factory. A foreclosure SUPERVISOR not able to define a promissory note is? That is like a soldier not able to define the use of a rifle. That is like a politician not being able to define what is in a bill she voted for.....oh wait.

I really hope this foreclosure mess isn't a reflection of society or else there really is no hope.