Some excerpts from The Florida Bar News
Lawyers representing banks and other mortgage service companies must tell the courts if they know of
paperwork problems known felonies in their clients’ foreclosure cases, according to the Bar’s Professional Ethics Committee.
The committee, at its June 24 meeting during the Bar’s Annual Convention, voted 20-6 to uphold a Bar staff opinion which advised a lawyer representing a bank in thousands of foreclosure cases.
According to the attorney, the bank used two employees to prepare and review necessary affidavits needed for the foreclosures. One employee always verified the figures in the necessary affidavits and signed the necessary paperwork in the presence of a notary. The second signer relied on a conscientious assistant to verify the figures before signing that he had personally reviewed the figures. Also, those signatures were sometimes notarized when the signer was not present, as required by law. The second signer’s practices extended back for 20 years.
The lawyer wanted to know if the court had to be informed of those
irregularities, felonies, since it was unlikely to change the outcome of any pending case. He also inquired whether it made any difference if the case was pending or closed, the stage of pending cases, or that the second signer had reverified information in the improperly notarized forms.
No comments:
Post a Comment