In Most of the Foreclosure Cases the Borrowers do Not Turn Up but When They Contest the Trouble Star

The processing methods of LPS and other allied firms are defective and yet why do the banks continue to use its services? False statements are produced by the computer regarding the dollars that are due, and the entity who is debtor; on top of this these wrong statements are signed by individuals who have no knowledge of the contents.

LPS has been able to capture half the mortgage market but not the whole. The other advertisements of other firms like Orion Financial Group appear shady.

Judge Diane Weiss Sigmund had to deal with a case in Taylor where there were many incorrect papers and wrong communications because of the business model of LPS. It led the judge to comment that the request by the bank for proceeding with foreclosures was “a textbook example of why the [LPS] procedures used by HSBC and its counsel in the name of minimizing collection costs is so problematic”.

Weiss was sympathetic towards the banks giving priority to saving costs but when the borrowers contest the filings by LPS then the problems surface. It is understandable that the lender should avail of the fastest and cheapest way to collect unpaid dues by making the best use of technology and delegating of task to others with lower monetary demands.

In most of the cases the borrowers do not turn up but when they contest the trouble starts – the defects in the automated system becomes obvious. At this point the lawyer should stop processing and start behaving like an attorney.

It means becoming personally engaged, discussing directly with the client and giving up total reliance on the screen of the computer. When this does not happen the court steps in as happened in the case of a couple in Louisiana. The Wilsons were current on their mortgage but LPS computer system showed it otherwise.

The same thing happens in both bankruptcy and foreclosure cases – it being worse in the case of foreclosures since the judges are not involved. Attorney O. Max Gardner III said, “The Wilson case succinctly documents the fundamental problems with the outsourcing of mortgage default legal work to non-lawyers such as LPS Default Solutions.

LPS has created a thousand times more problems than they have solved. It is time to eliminate the middleman from mortgage work and assign the job to real lawyers who are more concerned about the accuracy and quality of their work than about meeting arbitrary timelines and benchmarks imposed by non-lawyers”.