Massachusetts Attorney General’s Foreclosure Lawsuit Applauded by Private Consumer Attorneys

On December 1, 2011, Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley filed a 57 page lawsuit in Massachusetts Superior Court alleging that the BOA, JPMorgan Chase, Citibank, GMAC, Wells Fargo and MERS engaged in unfair and deceptive practices when foreclosing on homes in Massachusetts.  The lawsuit, which makes claims under Massachusetts consumer protection statute, contains three main claims against the nation’s largest lenders and servicers:

1) Instituting foreclosure before being assigned the mortgage which gave them the legal standing to foreclose
2) Creating false documentation to facilitate foreclosures, i.e. robo-signing 
3) Misrepresenting the loan modification process, deceptively implementing the loan modification process and deceiving borrowers regarding the foreclosure proceedings.

As consumer lawyers fighting every day for the rights of borrowers, we applaud the filing of Attorney General Coakley’s lawsuit.  In our individual cases against the banks and servicers, we have been dealing with all of the issues raised in the AG’s lawsuit.  Most recently, we have been trying to convince judges that lenders and servicer cannot proceed in any fashion against the borrower’s property without first establishing that they hold an effective assignment at the time they institute any type of foreclosure or seizure action.  Some courts are only now starting to really pay attention to these basic legal arguments.  We hope that the AG Coakley’s complaint will help educate the public and courts to these issues which we see to often in our consumer lawsuits. 

Read the 57 Page Lawsuit