Big Settlement With Plaintiff Foreclosure Firm
The New York Law Journal through law.com is reporting on a major settlement with a plaintiff’s foreclosure firm:
Foreclosure Lawyer Doesn’t Admit Doing Anything Wrong, But He’s Paying a $2 Million Fine
Julie Kay
New York Lawyer March 28, 2011Foreclosure attorney Marshall Watson and his Fort Lauderdale law firm have agreed to pay the state $2 million to settle charges of improprieties in the pursuit of foreclosure cases.
The agreement signed Thursday is the first between Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi and a foreclosure law firm, although investigations into others are pending.
Attorneys general of all 50 states launched investigations of foreclosure law firms for alleged “robo-signing” and other irregularities in residential foreclosures.
Half of the $2 million payment will go to The Florida Bar Foundation for a program funding legal aid attorneys who represent low-income homeowners facing foreclosure.
The law firm, which cooperated with the investigation, made no admission of wrongdoing. It agreed to review files in existing cases for accuracy and to make sure legal requirements are met in future cases.
Watson issued a statement saying he was pleased with the resolution.
“We worked closely with the attorney general’s office to develop best practices and procedures to implement at our firm,” he said. “With our firm’s tight controls now in place, we are setting a high bar for the mortgage law provider industry, and our clients recognize and value the positive steps we are taking.”
Holly Skolnick, the Greenberg Traurig attorney who represented Marshall Watson, did not return telephone calls for comment by deadline.
Miami attorney Jeffrey Tew of Tew Cardenas, who represents David J. Stern, a former Watson competitor whose Plantation foreclosure law firm also under investigation, said his client also was offered a settlement but wouldn’t consider it while appealing the attorney general’s investigative subpoena.
Matthew Weidner, a prominent Tampa foreclosure defense attorney, called the settlement with Marshall Watson “obscene.”
“That amount of money is nothing,” he said. “It doesn’t come close to addressing the substantive problems these foreclosure mills have created. They’re going to settle with all these guys, and they get to walk away from all these catastrophes they’ve created.”
He said the stipulations in the Watson agreement are practices lawyers already should be following, such as ensuring they have proper documents and accurate affidavits.
“I think they should not be settling for money for what they are supposed to be doing already,” Weidner said. “That’s meaningless. In a time of profound budget cuts, for our AG to settle for such a paltry amount of money is offensive. I’m afraid the AG is moonwalking away from the investigation. This $2 million may not even cover the costs of the investigation.”