Foreclosures prompt lawsuits against debt collectors
AUGUST 31, 2014 LAST UPDATED: SUNDAY, AUGUST 31, 2014, 1:21 AM
BY RICHARD NEWMAN
STAFF WRITER
THE RECORD
* Homeowners challenging lenders’ right to collect
Seven years after the meltdown of the subprime mortgage market, New Jersey continues to be a hotbed of home repossessions by lenders, resulting in reams of foreclosure-fraud and improper-debt-collection complaints that mainly target intermediaries known as mortgage servicers.
Fort Lee homeowner Eun Ju Song, who was notified last year that he was in default on his loan and is facing foreclosure, claims mortgage companies botched transfers of ownership rights to the mortgage he signed in 2006 and forged documents to try to fix the problem. In a federal lawsuit filed in Newark in May against Bank of America and the mortgage servicer Green Tree Servicing, he claimed that they haven’t shown they have any legal right to collect.
“With no properly recorded owner of the plaintiff’s mortgage, there is no one or entity entitled to enforce the conditions of the mortgage obligation,” the complaint says.
Jerry K. Wong of Clifton filed a lawsuit in May against Green Tree, which for the past couple of years has been one the most prolific foreclosure filers in the state. Wong accuses Green Tree, based in St. Paul, Minn., and one of its subcontractors of misrepresenting themselves as creditors when trying to collect on his loan, which went into default in late 2012. Such practices are a violation of the federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, according to the lawsuit, which seeks $500,000 in statutory and other damages.
Green Tree did not respond to requests for comment.
In West Milford, homeowner Paul Onder has been in a stand-off with the Utah-based debt collector Select Portfolio Services for four years over the same question: Who owns the mortgage? He said he hasn’t made a payment on his $450,000 debt consolidation loan since 2010.
“They want me to pay money? Where is that money going?” he said Wednesday in an interview.
SPS could not be reached for comment.
Disputes like these could multiply in the months ahead as the numbers of new residential foreclosure filings continue to rise. New filings in New Jersey in the 12 months ended June 30 climbed 38 percent, to 47,534 filings from 34,347 the previous 12 months, according to the New Jersey Administrative Office of the Courts in Trenton.
In the year ended June 30, 2012, there were 12,341 foreclosures filed.
Foreclosure filings have implications for borrowers’ credit history. Realtor.com says a foreclosure will reduce a credit score 100 to 300 points and will remain on the borrower’s record for seven years.
Statistics from the state Department of Banking and Insurance show that loan servicers Wells Fargo, Green Tree, Seterus and Nationstar Mortgage have racked up the biggest numbers of foreclosure filings. Wells Fargo and its affiliates made the most filings by far, with a combined 1,770 new foreclosure filings in the second quarter.
“The trend we are seeing with regard to foreclosure filings in New Jersey is consistent with what the Mortgage Bankers Association reported in their latest National Delinquency Survey,” Kevin Friedlander, a Wells Fargo spokesman, said in an email.
– See more at: https://www.northjersey.com/news/business/foreclosures-go-on-trial-1.1078579#sthash.aNagXVsZ.dpuf
wells bank sucks.
so true.