Lawyers' Carelessness Was Key to the Mortgage Mess

[avaistheone1]

Source: Daily Finance

Two of my biggest concerns about the mortgage mess involve the conduct of lawyers at every stage, from creating the toxic securities to foreclosing on homes, and that so far the major players haven't been held accountable for their actions in creating the crisis. Both concerns are neatly encapsulated by an enforcement action taken by the Securities and Exchange Commission at the end of last week.

On Friday, the SEC announced it is taking administrative action against David M. Tamman, a partner at Greenberg Traurig, a major international law firm. (Or at least, he was a partner: His page on the firm's website has been removed.) The SEC is going after Tamman because it says he falsified a document that described securities he helped a client sell. That is, when the SEC asked Tamman for copies, it says he altered the real document and gave the SEC the fake.

While that conduct is egregious -- and kudos to the SEC for going after him -- it's not that different than the ways many, many lawyers have behaved throughout this documentation debacle. For example, attorneys for multiple banks have been giving courts fraudulent documents in order to speed foreclosures, in many cases "robo-signing" the documents themselves. And consider the magnitude of the carelessness -- it seems at least like malpractice to me -- employed by the big firms involved in the securitization deals.


Read more: http://www.dailyfinance.com/story/credit/mortgage-document-mess-lawyers-foreclosure-securities-fraud/19821995/

[hedgehog]

1. We bought this place about 25 years ago with the seller holding the mortgage.

We had a lawyer handle our end. My brother was just starting out, but we hired a local lawyer figuring that would be better. Six months later, my dad was reading the deed and comparing it to the survey. It turned out that our local lawyer filed the deed he'd been handed by the seller without ever reading it. That deed pre-dated the sale of a corner of the property for the house next door. So we spent $500 to have the experienced local lawyer file a deed with the county showing that we owned the neighbor's property. Needless to say, we had the lawyer re-file the correct deed rather quickly. But can you imagine the kerfluffle if we hadn't found the mistake?

[bemildred]

2. "Carelessness" my ass. nt

[RegieRocker]

3. The sad effects of legal mumbo jumbo.

Be precise, clear and very very short. Long winded b.s. is not wanted and is designed to confuse and leave open to interpretation. More confusing word from a confusing language is dumb.