Foreclosures bring wealth, rebukes for Florida lawyer

[Capt. Jack]

Source: St. Petersburg Times

You could call him the foreclosure king of Florida.

As lawyer for several major banks, David J. Stern handles 20 percent of all foreclosure cases in the nation's fourth most populous state. It is from Stern's law firm that well over 100,000 Floridians, including many in the Tampa Bay area, have received the dreaded notice to pay up or face losing their homes.

The foreclosure business has been good to Stern, who lives in a $15 million Fort Lauderdale mansion and reaped $58.5 million by selling his back-office operations to a new public company in which he is a major shareholder.

But as his case load has grown, so have the controversies.

This spring, a Pasco County judge threw out a foreclosure case against a Wesley Chapel man after ruling that Stern's firm had submitted a clearly fraudulent document.

In South Florida, a foreclosure defense lawyer discovered more than 20 mortgage documents submitted by Stern's firm that bore notary seals that did not exist at the time the documents supposedly were notarized.

The Florida Bar reprimanded Stern in 2002 for overcharging and misleading clients, and is now considering a complaint questioning whether he should be allowed to farm out so much of his firm's business to nonlawyers.

Stern declined to be interviewed for this story.

Read more: http://www.tampabay.com/news/foreclosures-bring-wealth-rebukes-for-florida-lawyer/1109664

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Judgment day come for us all....eventually.

http://www.foreclosurehamlet.org

[marmar]

1. If there is justice, one day his $15 million home will be foreclosed on.....

nt

[Capt. Jack]

2. How do we fight this?

Ideas and suggestions cheerfully accepted....

http://www.foreclosurehamlet.org

[Freddie Stubbs]

3. Pay your mortgage

[Capt. Jack]

4. Here's an example of a legal document executed by DSJ in a foreclosure action

http://www.scribd.com/doc/32979257/Cheryl-Samons-David-J-Stern

Thanks for the thoughtful reply Freddie Stubbs. I wish it was that simple.

[Name removed]

7. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[w4rma]

12. Change the laws to force banks to work with home owners rather than trying to foreclose, asap. (nt)

[mbperrin]

8. Be sure to have your attorney ask for the original blue ink mortgage

documents held by the lender.

Hundreds of cases have been dismissed by judges because the foreclosure folks simply don't have the paperwork showing that they are the lienholders.

Plain fraud, which is now beginning to be known.

As for the foreclosure "king", I wish him the same that I wish everyone who makes their living off the misery of others - that he get absolutely everything he deserves from the universe in terms of karmic debt and quickly.

[Lasher]

9. And ask for proof that the plaintiffs are the current lien holders.

Since many of these mortgages have been bundled and sold to hedge funds and then investors, that can be difficult to establish, according to an article I once read.

[roxiejules]

11. How about get rid of MERS?

Make mortgage companies once again responsible for filing their own assignments and keeping track of the note.

:-)

[DirkGently]

14. Careful lawyering

If they're doing what is alleged, they are in it deep already. Bear in mind that the alleged forged instruments likely reflect what the real thing would say ... if they could find it. What's going on is that the foreclosures are flying so fast and so thick, and these specialty firms are so overloaded, that they often cannot locate documents, or even find the right person to execute an affidavit. We need to slow the foreclosure train down before it makes slums out of our neighborhoods and displaces families that, but for the crazy market bubble shenanigans, wouldn't be losing their homes. The Bankruptcy cramdown legislation was a great idea -- but it was discarded promptly. It appears the best we can hope for in the short run is that the sheer volume of foreclosures slows the process to a crawl -- which is already beginning to happen. Perhaps when it becomes more difficult, or the court system simply collapses under the sheer weight of litigation, the administration or Congress or the banks themselves (not bloody likely) will accept that this simply cannot continue.

[lunatica]

5. Even when they rake the money in they feel the need to commit fraud

All for more money. Jesus! This guy's a real gem. This is proof that one can never have enough money to satisfy one's greed. It's insatiable in practice.

[mike_c]

6. greedy rat bastard....

:grr:

[roxiejules]

10. MERS helped make this type of fraud easy...

When will we see Attorney General Holder open a criminal investigation into MERS? This transfer system was set up to circumvent the law and supports phony documents created by law firms such as this one!

Go read: http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/40770

and

http://www.doctorhousingbubble.com/mortgage-electronic-registration-systems-mers-a-system-designed-to-create-the-mortgage-back-security-bubble/

MERS is a front for the mortgage and banking industry. It is claimed as a system of convenience but in reality, it is nothing more than the grease to lube up the housing bubble. It made underwriting easier but it also made it harder for homeowners to go after the lender who originated the note. After all, if they no longer hold legal action on the deed, who do you really go after?

..if you dig deeper into MERS and their shareholders you will find the same crony bankers that have led our economy off the financial cliff. Some of the shareholders include AIG, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, WaMu, CitiMortgage, Countrywide, GMAC, Guaranty Bank, and Merrill Lynch. It is a stunner how these same players show up in every financial war we have been dealing with.

MERS was founded in 1995 under the pretext that it would lower the cost of recording an assignment of ownership in county land records. By the way, as someone that has bought property in multiple states the filing fee is the lowest cost in acquiring a home. If you cannot afford the tiny fee in recording the deed then you probably shouldn’t be buying a home. The reality of course is MERS allowed for the mortgage backed security business to explode since it allowed mortgages to be shipped off to Wall Street to be minced into tiny tranches and sold off by the big investment banks to pensions, foreign investors, retail investors, and everyone else that wanted a piece of the mortgage bubble.

[flvegan]

13. Nonsense. Mike Echevarria is the foreclosure king of Florida.

Echevarria, McCalla, Raymer, Barrett & Frappier (now Florida Default Law Group) was doing high rate foreclosure caseloads before Stern. Then again, so was Shapiro & Fishman.

Difference being that AFAIK, Echevarria still lives in his nice (but far more modest) home here in Tampa. He's gotta be worth $100 million by now.

[Capt. Jack]

15. Class Action Lawsuit to be Filed Against David J. Stern.

To potentially qualify, one must have lost one’s home to foreclosure within the last three years; the plaintiff must have been represented by the Law Office of
David J. Stern; and your mortgage must have included the standard MERS language.

More info: http://www.foreclosurehamlet.org/profiles/blogs/class-action-forming-relating?xg_source=activity