Make sure your mortgage documents are signed by qualified mortgage industry employees who've verified your documents and aren't forging someone else's signature.

Nearly a year after federal regulators imposed a moratorium on foreclosures to stop "robo-signing" and other questionable foreclosure procedures, robo-signing behavior continues to flourish.

A recent Associated Press report says mortgage industry employees in at least three states are still signing unread mortgage documents and faking signatures to move mortgage documents to speed mortgages through the pipeline.

AP's findings point to a deeply-rooted problem with mortgage procedures and they reveal mortgage processors haven't followed federal orders to clean up their act to end document fraud in the mortgage industry.

AP said tainted mortgage documents in the past were largely related to foreclosures, but found more recent suspect paperwork has been filed for refinancing or new purchases.

Robo-signing involves people swearing to the accuracy of documents without verifying the information. It can involve notary fraud; employees signing without reading the documents; forging executive signatures or signing off on documents with a fake executive title.

AP found robo-signing problems in Ingham County, MI, which includes Lansing; Essex County, MA; Guilford County, NC; but n individuals, lenders or paperwork processors have been charged with a crime over robo-signing.

Robo-signing or otherwise forging someone's name on a legal document is a federal crime punishable by prison. It's also illegal for someone to sign their name to an affidavit if you have not verified the sworn-to information.

Mortgage servicers have been using questionable foreclosure procedures for nearly a half decade and twice this year, federal agencies busted mortgage servicers for robo-signing and other foreclosure shenanigans.

After reviewing 14 large mortgage servicers in the fourth quarter of 2010, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), Federal Reserve, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), and the Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS) found what regulators described a "pattern of misconduct and negligence related to deficient practices in residential mortgage loan servicing and foreclosure processing."

On June 30, federal regulators said banks that determine problems in their foreclosure processes must take "immediate" corrective action, and then gave them until September 30 to take "immediate" action, regarding:

• The practice of "dual tracking" simultaneously engaging a homeowner in a loan modification, while foreclosing on the property.

• Using robo-signing to finalize foreclosures.

• Losing and misplacing documents, not keeping records of contact with homeowners, and asking homeowners to repeatedly submit the same documents.

In an earlier April 2011 report "Interagency Review of Foreclosure Policies and Practices" regulators also found "unsafe and unsound practices and violations of applicable federal and state laws."

Enforcement actions against national bank mortgage servicers consisted largely of telling mortgage servicers to clean up their act, but did not "preclude determinations regarding assessment of civil money penalties, which the OCC is holding in abeyance."

Published: August 4, 2011

Use of this article without permission is a violation of federal copyright laws.

A journalist for 35-years, Broderick Perkins parlayed an old-school daily newspaper career into a digital news service offering editorial content and consulting services. Perkins' San Jose, CA-based DeadlineNews Group includes the flagship news site, DeadlineNews.Com, offering real estate, personal finance and consumer journalism, and a backshop, the Deadline Newsroom.