Many foreclosures have been thrown into question because of false attorney signatures.
Many foreclosures have been thrown into question because of flawed documentation such as inaccurate affidavits describing a mortgage's history. But three recent court cases point to another type of flaw in foreclosure filings that could place thousands more cases in doubt: false attorney signatures on court documents.
Experts said that foreclosures that relied on court documents with the signatures of attorneys who in fact neither signed nor reviewed them are vulnerable to being thrown out in the 23 states in which foreclosures must be approved by a judge.
False attorney signatures are different from robo-signing, in which mortgage company officials sign large numbers of foreclosure documents without checking the accuracy of the details. Bob Davis Jr., a Pennsylvania lawyer who concentrates on the defense of attorney ethics cases, said that falsified signatures from lawyers on case pleadings can void a foreclosure by rendering key documents invalid before the court.
"In litigation the signature of an attorney means something very specific: that they've read the material and attest that it's truthful," Davis said.
Davis said that while it is not good practice, it is permitted to use a name stamp or have another person physically sign an attorney's name, but only if the attorney has personally conducted due diligence and determined that the material is truthful. He also distinguished between documents with false signatures and those whose contents are materially false. If an attorney has allowed another person to sign court documents in the attorney's name without reviewing them, but the underlying evidence is accurate, Davis said it may be possible -- but is by no means certain that the pleadings could be corrected and re-submitted to the court.
Lawyers who are found to have authorized fake signatures could face sanctions, such as reprimands, or suspensions of license, said Dianne Coscarelli, a partner at the firm Thompson Hine and the vice-chair of the American Bar Association's Real Estate Finance Group.
Gardner, the consumer bankruptcy lawyer, said he expected that false attorney signatures will become the target of increasing scrutiny. He said that additional class action suits against law firms that specialize in foreclosures, sanctions by state bar associations against offending lawyers, and investigations of the practice by state attorneys general are all likely possibilities.
Link:
http://www.propublica.org/blog/item/false-attorney-signatures-cast-new-doubts-on-foreclosures