Oh, the irony.
Scroll through the signed pages of the $25 billion foreclosure settlement and you’ll find on page 42, Philip Lehman, the assistant attorney general of the North Carolina Department of Justice.
It looks like his signature, but it isn’t. Lehman confirmed in an email that a department head signed the document with his full and legal authorization because he was temporarily out of the office, and he gets the irony, too.
Here is that signature:
This technically doesn’t meet the definition of “robo-signing” as best as anyone can come up with, and the settlement is certainly not considered void by any stretch. The decision is completely legal.
Besides, if the AGs were guilty of robo-signing, they’re bad at it. So far, only one example came to light. This shows the government could never match the efficiency of servicing shops, where evidence points to the alleged signing of foreclosure documents en masse without checking file veracity, as is required by law in many states.
It took state and federal prosecutors nearly 18 months to sign just one document. (In fact, Lehman should probably be applauded for avoiding any more delays than the poltical back and forth that haunted this deal for months).
By contrast, Bank of America, at one point was allegedly signing up to 20,000 affidavits per day, according to a recent report.
The irony here just goes to show that even the AGs are pressed for time. And it’s not like anyone lost their home because of this.
