February 12, 2016

Early this morning, a Santa Rosa County, Florida Circuit Court Judge granted the homeowners’ Emergency Motion for a stay of enforcement of a Writ of Possession (eviction) following the homeowners’ filing of a Sworn Motion to Vacate a Final Judgment of foreclosure due to fraud upon the court by Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. as the claimed “trustee” of a New Century securitization trust. The eviction was to take place later today.

The Sworn Motion was supported by a 34-page Affidavit of Marie McDonnell, the expert witness who was instrumental in the $5.4M jury verdict in Texas against Wells Fargo and the servicer where the jury found that Wells Fargo had engaged in fraud. The Florida case and the Texas case both involved New Century as the alleged “lender”, and in both cases Wells Fargo sought to foreclose.

Mr. Barnes represents the homeowners, prepared the Sworn Motion, and argued the Emergency Motion for stay this morning.

The McDonnell Affidavit was the product of five weeks of intensive research which revealed that New Century never owned or funded the loan, and concluded that Wells Fargo was aware of these and other facts but withheld these facts from the homeowners and the Court, thus having procured the Final Judgment through fraud. The investigation revealed that the homeowners’ loan was funded and owned by UBS Real Estate Securities, Inc. which Ms. McDonnell discovered after conducting an intensive investigation into the New Century bankruptcy where UBS had filed an adversary proceeding against New Century and where there were repurchase agreements in place. The investigation revealed that at all times, UBS Real Estate Securities both funded and owned the homeowners’ loan, and that New Century never lent any money to the homeowners despite claiming to do so in the Note and Mortgage.

Throughout the 4-year state court foreclosure case, Wells Fargo had consistently taken the position that it owned the loan by virtue of it being transferred to Wells Fargo from New Century. This position has been proven to be false from the beginning. Wells Fargo had also taken the position that it had the original Note, when in fact documents discovered by Ms. McDonnell showed that Deutsche Bank was the custodian of the loan documents and there was no evidence of any relinquishment of the documents from Deutsche Bank to Wells Fargo.

Ms. McDonnell did a side-by-side comparison of the facts in the Texas case and the Florida case, and found the fraud in the Florida case, which involved a private securitization, to be even more egregious than the fraud found in the Texas case where the jury awarded the homeowners $5.4M which was assessed against Wells Fargo and the servicer.

A specially set 2-hour hearing is being scheduled on the merits of the Sworn Motion to Vacate the Final Judgment, which attaches a copy of the homeowners’ separately filed Federal rescission action which was also prepared by Mr. Barnes.

Jeff Barnes, Esq., www.ForeclosureDefenseNationwide.com