TRENTON
– Attorney General Jeffrey S. Chiesa
announced today that the State has won a $469,500
trial decision against two corporate defendants
and two individuals accused in a lawsuit of
defrauding financially struggling homeowners
through a variety of deceptive mortgage foreclosure
“rescue” practices.
The final order granting judgment, issued
by Superior Court Judge Thomas J. Olivieri
in Hudson County after a 10-day bench trial,
found that defendants Property Solutions
of N.J., PSRE Holding Company, Edward Toledo
and Raymond Vega violated the Consumer Fraud
Act through numerous unconscionable commercial
practices.
Specifically, the defendants were found
to have defrauded certain struggling homeowners
by promising to help them keep their homes
but, instead, acquiring their properties
at steep discounts, binding the victims
to predatory “sale-leaseback”
agreements and, typically, evicting them
before selling their homes to other buyers.
As a result of the court’s decision,
Property Solutions, PSRE, Toledo and Vega
have been ordered to pay the State a total
of $280,000 in civil penalties, and to pay
three defrauded New Jersey homeowners a
total of $189,500 in restitution. The defendants
are also permanently banned from operating
any foreclosure-related businesses in New
Jersey.
“These
defendants promised struggling homeowners
help, but in the end only helped themselves.
For their callous exploitation of people
in need, they are now – appropriately
– being held accountable,” said
Attorney General Chiesa. “This is
an important win on behalf of New Jersey
citizens,” Chiesa said, “not
only because it provides restitution for
homeowners who were harmed by the defendants’
fraudulent actions, but because it sends
a clear message that we will not tolerate
this kind of predatory, greed-driven conduct.”
Thomas R. Calcagni, Director of the Division
of Consumer Affairs, called the Property
Solutions verdict “a clear victory
on behalf of New Jerseyans who are struggling
during these difficult economic times, and
against those who seek to take advantage
of their desperation.”
“Supposed
‘rescue plans,’ created to deceive
financially distressed individuals, are
merely one of the many types of fraud or
unacceptable business practices to which
homeowners become vulnerable when they face
foreclosure,” Calcagni said. “The
Division of Consumer Affairs' Financial
Fraud Unit has responded by aggressively
cracking-down on those who unlawfully seek
to exploit financially-strapped homeowners.”
Fraudulent conduct charged in the State’s
two-count lawsuit took place between 2005
and 2007. According to the suit, Property
Solutions and the other defendants, all
of whom listed Union City addresses at the
time, typically operated by contacting homeowners
in foreclosure shortly after their homes
were auctioned at sheriff’s sale,
and within the 10-day period the homeowners
had to redeem their homes by paying off
the outstanding liens.
The defendants would promise to save consumers’
homes by paying off the balance of their
delinquent mortgages within the redemption
period following the sale and further promising
the consumers that defendants would help
them obtain financing to save their homes.
Using this approach, the defendants bypassed
the typical sheriff’s sale process
and acquired homes for the “pay-off
amount” of the foreclosed mortgages
– an amount that was usually far lower
than what the properties would have sold
for at sheriff’s sale.
Although the defendants held themselves
out as experts in the foreclosure field,
they failed to disclose to victimized homeowners
that they would have been entitled to surplus
funds representing the difference between
the amount they owed and the higher price
for which their homes sold at sheriff’s
sale.
As part of the ostensible “solution”
offered to these victims, the defendants
would enter into a sale-leaseback agreement
with them that provided a chance to repurchase
the home, but on grossly unfavorable terms.
For example, the contracts typically required
consumers to repurchase their homes within
90 days, and at prices significantly higher
than what the defendants had paid to acquire
the properties.
As a result, the homeowners forfeited their
right to seek surplus funds that, in the
case of one family, had amounted to $154,000.
Although the consumers who entered these
agreements were, for a time, able to remain
in their homes, the arrangement typically
did not last. Monthly use and occupancy
payments required by the defendants were
in some cases higher than the mortgage payments
the homeowner had been unable to afford.
Ultimately, victims in the State’s
case either vacated or were evicted by the
defendants – even when they’d
managed to remain current with the higher
monthly payments. In several cases, pleadings
filed by the defendants contained false
sworn statements that the victims had failed
to make any of their use and occupancy payments.
In rendering his decision in the Property
Solutions case, Judge Olivieri reserved
decision on the State’s application
for investigative costs and attorney’s
fees.
Deputy Attorney General Jah-Juin (Jared)
Ho, Deputy Attorney General Janine Matton
and Assistant Attorney General Brian McDonough
of the Affirmative Civil Enforcement Practice
Group represented the State in the Property
Solutions trial. Investigator Jared O'Cone
of the Division of Consumer Affairs Office
of Consumer Protection, conducted the investigation.
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