Version PDF - Le Réseau juridique du Québec
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$25 Billion Settlement Vindication<br />
for Homeowners,<br />
Says Foreclosure Defense Attorney<br />
The robosigning settlement is an important achievement<br />
for President Obama and the country, but for<br />
foreclosure defense attorney Roy Oppenheim and<br />
the people he represents, it is also vindication.<br />
Oppenheim has been defending homeowners for years, and<br />
has been calling for widespread change on the South Florida<br />
Law Blog, long before it was fashionable to do so.<br />
Before robosigning was a word most people knew, Oppenheim<br />
rallied for homeowners to confront the banks in<br />
court.<br />
"Initially I did not believe that our nation's biggest banks<br />
would be so arrogant as to create false documentation in<br />
order to push foreclosures through," Oppenheim says.<br />
But with every new client that walked through his doors<br />
demanding help, he saw more and more cases where the<br />
banks were willing to commit perjury and forgery in order<br />
to go through with foreclosures.<br />
"They were cutting corners left and right, all in the name of<br />
expediency," Oppenheim adds, "but the corners they were<br />
cutting were on the U.S. Constitution."<br />
During their casework he and the<br />
attorneys at Oppenheim Law discovered<br />
that banks were committing<br />
systemic fraud at the highest<br />
level, so they could foreclose on<br />
homes when they did not legally<br />
have the right to do so.<br />
What's worse, Oppenheim claims,<br />
is that the courts were often complicit<br />
with the banks and did not allow<br />
homeowners the opportunity to<br />
defend themselves.<br />
"The rules of civil proce<strong>du</strong>re were being thrown out the<br />
door, and good people were being denied their day in<br />
court," Oppenheim says.<br />
With last week's 25 billion dollar settlement now officially<br />
unveiled, Americans can now see what Oppenheim has long<br />
been saying, that the banks were not looking out for their<br />
borrowers.<br />
"The truth is no amount of money would have been enough,"<br />
adds Oppenheim. "And since we can't put the banks in jail,<br />
they got what was in essence a very public shaming."<br />
While Oppenheim feels the settlement is a slap on the wrist<br />
to the banks, he believes it was a crucial and necessary step<br />
in order to begin fixing the housing crisis.<br />
"It was a down payment on the next settlement, which is<br />
coming, and will make what the banks paid out last week<br />
look like peanuts."<br />
With President Obama, who Oppenheim now calls a reengaged<br />
president, appointing New York Attorney General Eric<br />
Schneiderman to lead the Residential Mortgage Backed Security<br />
Working Group, he finally sees a government finally<br />
working for the American homeowner.<br />
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