Lawyer Who Worked at Colo.'s Biggest Foreclosure Firm Says Legal Process Is Based on 'Blind Faith'
A lawyer who formerly worked at Colorado’s biggest foreclosure law firm says attorneys often filed foreclosure papers without ever seeing the original documents, probably resulting in foreclosure judgments in cases in which the plaintiff lenders actually had no legal right to the homes they obtained.
Keith Gantenbein, 31, is expected to offer similar testimony today at a state house committee hearing concerning proposed legislation that would require foreclosing banks to provide original loan documents and judges to certify that lenders have a legal right to foreclose, the Denver Post reports.
He estimates that he and other lawyers who worked with him at Castle Stawiarski certified “tens of thousands” of qualified holder statements without ever seeing original loan documents to determine whether the foreclosing lender was in fact the qualified holder.
“The discomfort was you had no way to verify the information they provided, and we found many bank errors, and you’re not 100 percent sure you had the right to foreclose,” Gantenbein told the newspaper. “It happened so frequently that there has to be a large percentage of homeowners who lost their homes to the wrong people.”
He called the Colorado foreclosure process “one of blind faith.”
Lawrence Castle didn’t respond to the newspaper’s request for comment.
