Robo-signers...The nickname for those who processed large numbers of foreclosure affidavits.
JPMorgan Chase and GMAC are reviewing their foreclosure procedures, David Streitfeld reported in The Times. According to Streitfeld, JPMorgan Chase have suspended 56,000 foreclosures because relevant documents may not have been properly prepared; GMAC have also suspended an undisclosed number:
Chase and GMAC, in their zeal to process hundreds of thousands of foreclosures as quickly as possible and get those properties on the market, employed people who could sign documents so quickly they popularized a new term for them: “robo-signer.”
In depositions taken by lawyers for embattled homeowners, the robo-signers said they or their team had signed 10,000 or more foreclosure affidavits a month.
Now that haste has come back to haunt them. The affidavits in foreclosures attest that the preparer personally reviewed the files, which those workers acknowledge they had no time to do.
GMAC and Chase say that their lapses were technical and will soon be remedied with new filings. But defense lawyers are seizing on these revelations and say they will now work to have their cases thrown out.