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John O’Brien is the Register of Deeds for Massachusetts Southern Essex District, a post he hasserved in faithfully since 1977. He is an elected official and the first county recorder in the nation to stand up to big bank fraudclosures, those manufactured with forged documents.
Having lived his life in the Cradle of Freedom, where the spirit of the American Revolution runs deep, he is that rare public servant who takes the public trust seriously. History will reveal him to be a genuine American hero and the patron saint of homeowners across the country.
On June 7th 2011, saying, “the buck stops here”, Register of Deeds, John O’Brien rejected 2 robo-signed documents submitted to his Registry for recording and plans to continue doing so. And thus was heard, the shot fired ‘round the World’ in the New American Revolution. “My Registry will not be a knowing participant in this fraud against homeowners. From today forward, lenders be on notice, the Southern Essex District Registry of Deeds will not record robo-signed documents.”
Register O’Brien said, “Knowing what I now know, it would be a dereliction of my duties as the keeper of the records to record these documents and any other documents that contain questionable signatures. To do so, would make me a willing participant in a continuing scheme which has corrupted the chain of title of thousands of Essex County property owners. I have decided to put a stop to this reckless behavior and hold these lenders and their agents accountable for the authenticity of what they are attempting to record in my Registry. I do not believe this to be unreasonable.”
O’Brien continued, “This is even bigger than the Savings and Loan Scandal. Banks are going to court with fraudulent documents to take people’s homes and that’s not what America is about.”
 O’Brien’s office conducted an audit of all mortgage assignments to assess the extent of the forgery and found problems to be wide spread. The problem is further exacerbated by an entity called MERS, short for Mortgage Electronic Registration systems which was created by Wall Street as an alternative to the traditional County Recording systems.
“The Audit makes the finding that this was not only a MERS problem, but a scheme also perpetuated by MERS shareholder banks such Bank of America, Wells Fargo, JP Morgan and others. I am stunned and appalled by the fact that America’s biggest banks have played fast and loose with people’s biggest asset – their homes."
"This is disgusting, and this is criminal."
“This evidence has made it clear to me that the only way we can ever determine the total economic loss and the amount of damage done to the taxpayers is by conducting a full forensic audit of all registry of deeds in Massachusetts. I suspect that at the end of the day we are going to find that the taxpayers have been bilked in this state alone of over 400 million dollars not including the accrued interest plus costs and penalties. “
O'Brien figures his County lost as much as $22 million in revenue since 1998 and the number may be even larger. To get some of it back he commissioned, at no cost to the state or the taxpayers, an audit of 2010 mortgage assignments.
- 16% of the assignments were valid, 75% were invalid, and 9% were deemed questionable.
- Of those that are invalid, 27% were fraudulent, 35% showed evidence of robo-signing, and 10% violated the Massachusetts Mortgage Fraud Statute.
- The proper owner of the mortgages could only be determined 60% of the time.
These facts need to be brought to the attention of all county recorders across the nation. Register O’Brien encourages all County Recorders to join him in protesting this flagrant violation of property laws.
Bring these facts to your own county recorders. Ask them to join John O Brien and follow his lead in his efforts to bring integrity back to the County Land Records system. |
GWMantor
