Suit: JPMorgan didn’t verify foreclosure docs

By Dow Jones Newswires
Posted Sep. 28, 2010 at 6:19 a.m.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. faces a legal challenge next month that could cast doubt on thousands of foreclosures after a mortgage executive at the bank said she didn’t verify documents used to justify home seizures.

Lawyers for a Palm Beach County, Fla. homeowner asked a judge to throw out a foreclosure as a penalty for misleading the court, according to attorney Tom Ice of Ice Legal PA. They’re citing a May 17 deposition in which the JPMorgan executive said she signed thousands of affidavits and documents supporting the New York-based bank’s claims without personally checking loan records. The court is scheduled to hear arguments Oct. 19.

The Chase Home Finance operation supervisor, Beth Ann Cottrell, said in May she was among eight managers who together sign about 18,000 documents a month, according to a transcript of her sworn deposition provided by Ice. Asked how they were prepared, she said she relied on other people at the firm.

“My review is more or less signing the document unless it’s questionable,” she said. That means, “somebody has a question and brings it to me and says, Beth, can you take a look at this?’”

Inaccurate statements by banks in foreclosure documents may give borrowers who have lost their homes a legal basis to challenge the seizures, derailing resales and casting doubts on property titles. A Florida court sanctioned Ally Financial Inc.’s GMAC Mortgage unit for faulty affidavits in 2006, and the firm suspended evictions in 23 states this month after finding employees still signing affidavits without checking the data.

JPMorgan spokesman Tom Kelly declined to comment. Cottrell didn’t return phone calls to her office requesting comment. A lawyer representing her at the deposition, Joseph Mancilla of the Florida Default Law Group PL, didn’t return calls. Cottrell isn’t named as a defendant.

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