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NPR:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...ryId=130536042

Attorneys general and mortgage regulators for all 50 states announced a coordinated investigation of the mortgage-servicing industry in response to allegations that questionable documents were used to support potentially hundreds of thousands of foreclosures nationwide.

Led by officials representing many of the states with the highest foreclosure rates, including Florida, Arizona and California, the review is expected to focus on whether lending institutions made false statements or prepared documents improperly in the process of evicting borrowers from their homes.

In a joint statement released Wednesday, the officials said foreclosure proceedings "appear to have procedural defects." In many foreclosure cases, they said, mortgage servicing employees apparently "did not have personal knowledge of the facts asserted in the documents," a violation of many states' laws.

The officials said they will look closely at the industry practice of "robo-signing," in which mortgage company employees sign documents without reviewing the terms and absent a notary public, as required by most state laws. The officials said robo-signing "may constitute a deceptive act and/or unfair practice."

The inquiry will center on several of the largest lenders — GMAC Mortgage, a unit of Ally Financial Inc.; Bank of America; and JPMorgan Chase & Co. The companies recently acknowledged finding questionable documents for thousands of foreclosures, largely due to "robo-signers" who approved repossessions but didn't properly review the cases.