Wells Fargo Bank Sues Itself

Extreme economic problems require extreme solutions, and Wells Fargo Bank has come up with a good one. They have decided to sue themselves. Wells Fargo holds the first and second mortgages on a condominium that is going into foreclosure. As holder of the first, they are suing all other lien holders, including the holder of the second, which is Wells Fargo. It gets better. The company has hired a lawyer to defend itself against its own lawsuit. The defense lawyer even filed this answer to the complaint, "Defendant admits that it is the owner and holder of a mortgage encumbering the subject real property. All other allegations of the complaint are denied." On the website The Consumer Warning Network, Angie Moreschi wrote: "We've apparently reached the perfect storm for complete and utter idiocy by some banks trying to foreclose on homes."

Comments

Eh

[BSDevil]

It's actually more common than you'd think. The meat of the story is really this line:

As holder of the first, Wells Fargo is suing all other lien holders, including the holder of the second, which is itself.

Wells Fargo (holder of the senior mortgage) is trying to clear out all the subsidiary mortgage interests so that it can sell the property. In the process of doing so, it has to sue itself for record-keeping purposes - if I'm going to buy some property, I want a clear case record showing that all existing claims have been discharged. What will likely happen, however, is that junior Wells Fargo will settle with senior Wells Fargo, after doing some filings to show that it's done it's due dilligence in trying to protect it's fiduciary interest in the property.

Re:Not only act of idiocy

[AK Marc]

Actually, it is the law. Wells Fargo is required by law to sue itself. It must file suit to forclose. It must file suit against all leinholders to clear the title. It can't do it any other way. It can't hire one firm to represent both sides, even if both sides are the same company because that's a conflict of interest, and we are have adversarial court system. And so it's in the interest of both firms to stretch out the legal proceedings to increase billing, again a legal thing. Wells Fargo is caught in the middle of bad laws written by lawyers and enforced by lawyers. And the only way out is to sue themselves. And somehow that's because the government is issuing bailouts? Wells Fargo is one of the most successful in this time. They aren't on the brink of failing, they are one buying up other institutions at fire sale prices. But bad laws and stupid Internet armchair quarterbacks make for good news. And that's what it really is about. Blaming everyone else and pointing out the stupid things, when the real problem is the voters who pick from Kang and Kodos and think there is a difference when all of them spend more than we take in on projects most people don't want. The only difference is what projects that shouldn't exist get funded these 8 years or those 4 years or whatever.