An audit in 2012 by San Francisco county officials of about 400 foreclosures “determined that almost all involved either legal violations or suspicious documentation. . . . The improprieties range from the basic — a failure to warn borrowers that they were in default on their loans as required by law — to the arcane. For example, transfers of many loans in the foreclosure files were made by entities that had no right to assign them and institutions took back properties in auctions even though they had not proved ownership. . . . About 84 percent of the files contained what appear to be clear violations of law, it said, and fully two-thirds had at least four violations or irregularities.”[1] The problem seems to be systemic, suggesting that judges should be able to modify mortgages on the basis of nullified contract.
The full essay is in Cases of Unethical Business, available in print and as an ebook at Amazon.com.
1. Gretchen Morgenson, “Audit Uncovers Extensive Flaws in
Foreclosures,” The
New York Times, February 16, 2012.
