'The More You Look, The More Bank Criminality You Find in Mortgage Land'

from yves smith and nakedcapitalism...........

"First is that the Associated Press reports that Guiford County, North Carolina register of deeds Joe O’Brien has found evidence of robosigning in his filed dating back to 1998. This is significant because:

Servicers did nothing on a one-off basis. If O’Brien found robosigned documents in his files that far back, it is certain there are other examples in other jurisdictions dating back that far.

It indicated the procedural abuses are much longer standing than virtually all commentators had assumed. I had thought it started with the 2002-3 refinancing boom, when servicers failed to staff up to meet big increases in volumes, which led to corners-cuttting in origination and eventually led to abuses in foreclosures. But this records search indicates the bad practices started much earlier and came to be applied over time on a more widespread basis.

The second sighting comes from American Banker’s Kate Berry, and provides additional confirmation of other reports that banks continue to engage in backdating of documents after having piously sworn to stop that sort of thing:

Several dozen documents reviewed by American Banker show that as recently as August some of the largest U.S. banks, including Bank of America Corp., Wells Fargo & Co., Ally Financial Inc., and OneWest Financial Inc., were essentially backdating paperwork necessary to support their right to foreclose"...........READ MORE