Lender Processing Services reached a settlement this week with the Missouri attorney general, dismissing criminal charges that were pending against its now-defunct subsidiary DocX.
As part of the settlement, LPS will voluntary pay $1.5 million to Missouri, and reimburse the AG’s office $500,000 for costs associated with the investigation.
“This settlement is an important milestone in our ongoing efforts to resolve legal and regulatory issues related to the operations of DocX, which we closed in 2010,” said Hugh Harris, president and chief executive officer of the firm.
“LPS remains focused on resolving all remaining legal and regulatory challenges as expeditiously as possible and is committed to ensuring that we continue to operate with integrity and compliance in everything we do.”
In February, Missouri attorney general Chris Koster accused DocX and its founder and former president Lorraine Brown of having company employees falsely notarize thousands of mortgage-related documents for several banks in multiple handwritings.
An indictment alleges that the person whose name (Linda Green) appears on 68 notarized deeds of release on behalf of the lender is not the actual person who signed the paperwork.
From 2008 to 2010, DocX took in $363,000 of revenue by filing the mortgage documents. Therefore, the settlement agreed upon is “well in excess of the revenue earned by the company in the state of Missouri,” Koster said.
He added, “My office has taken the position that when you sign your name to a legal document, it matters,” he said in a prepared statement. “The monetary disgorgement and the agreement we have reached in this criminal case with DocX should remind all mortgage services processers that our system of titling real property will be held to a standard of accuracy and truth expected by homeowners across the country.”
