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A ""Citigroup"":http://www.citigroup.com official told lawmakers at a congressional hearing last week that the company's review of foreclosure cases has uncovered some 14,000 affidavits that will likely need to be re-filed with the courts.
[IMAGE]Since the paperwork controversy surfaced and triggered foreclosure suspensions by several major mortgage servicers, Citi has been unwavering in its claims that the foreclosure processes it has in place are ""sound.""
Compared to the problems uncovered by its big-bank counterparts, it would appear that Citi's processes are at least sound-er. In mid-October, ""Bank of America said"":http://dsnews.comarticles/bank-of-america-loses-73-billion-in-third-quarter-2010-10-19 it had begun re-submitting 102,000 affidavits in which foreclosure judgment was pending. Although it never implemented a foreclosure freeze, ""Wells Fargo acknowledged"":http://dsnews.comarticles/wells-fargo-owns-up-to-finding-errors-in-55000-foreclosure-affidavits-2010-10-28 in late October that it had found errors in about 55,000 foreclosure affidavits.
Harold Lewis, managing director of CitiMortgage and head of Citi's homeowner assistance program, explained to a House subcommittee last week that for the most part, his
[COLUMN_BREAK]company has been able to steer clear of the robo-signing controversy because of a restructuring that began more than a year ago.
Lewis said Citi centralized its foreclosure operations into one unit, added staff, and improved its internal training program to ensure foreclosures were being processed correctly. According to Lewis, Citi currently has 21 employees in its foreclosure affidavit group, and each employee reviews and executes about 35 affidavits a day.
Lewis explained that Citi is currently reviewing approximately 10,000 affidavits that were executed in pending judicial foreclosures initiated before the process improvements he outlined were fully implemented at the company's St. Louis processing center in February of 2010. Citi expects that affidavits executed prior to the fall of 2009 will need to be re-filed, Lewis told lawmakers.
Separately, he said, Citi is also reviewing approximately 4,000 pending foreclosure affidavits in judicial states that were executed at the company's Dallas processing center and may not have been signed in the presence of a notary. Citi expects that it will re-file these affidavits, Lewis said.
In addition, Citi stopped referring new matters to the Florida law offices of David J. Stern, P.A. in September of 2010 and has since withdrawn all pending matters from the so-called foreclosure mill, which is under investigation for forging foreclosure documents and ""has been blacklisted"":http://dsnews.comarticles/gses-blacklist-controversial-foreclosure-law-firm-in-florida-2010-11-02 by both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
As an added precaution, Citi is transferring approximately 8,500 pending foreclosure files from the Stern law firm to new counsel. New affidavits for these cases will be prepared and re-filed by new counsel under Citi's current procedures, Lewis said.
