What happens in Ghanaian courts is child’s play! Let me paint you a brief scenario. You discover that a big bank has “modified” and forged your signature to a mortgage on your property. Because the signature is forged, the signature is not notarized. And because the signature on the modified mortgage is not notarized, the modified mortgage is not recorded. You cry foul and refuse to honor the mortgage. The Bank denies the signature is forged and attempts to “foreclose” on your property. So you hire an excellent lawyer (online because it was during COVID times) who files a motion to stop the foreclosure.
It should be a no-brainer. The (modified) mortgage note is not recorded. So the foreclosure should be stopped immediately. Months and tens of thousands of dollars later your lawyer keeps telling you that the Court indeed stopped the foreclosure but “only temporarily”. Incredulous, you finally check the Docket for the case and realize that (1) the court did indeed stop the foreclosure permanently. (2) That your brilliant lawyer and the lawyer for the big bank through “Stipulation” had a “stipulated Order” signed (by whom?) to the effect that the foreclosure is stopped only temporarily. Therefore, the case Docket is still Open and what appears to be a “foreclosure” (actually a series of motions to extend the scheduled date for a foreclosure hearing) is still ongoing. (3) In the mean time your brilliant lawyer, sensing that you are on to the truth resigns and vanishes into thin air.
And here is where the horror story begins. You try to hire a lawyer (many lawyers) to reverse the damage. At first they are scandalized by what you show them. Then they contact the other side (the lawyer for the big bank) and they back out of the case. Finally you say okay I will handle this myself. You file a Motion (under the foreclosure docket). Months go by. No response. You contact the Court. You attempt to find the Judge assigned to the case. No judge is assigned to the case. You ask how it is possible to have an Open case with no substantive judge assigned? You are told it happens. You ask who handles motions filed under the case? You are told it is the “duty judge”. So you ask to see the duty Judge (you know it is useless because the duty judges rotate) but in any case the answer is no. You say this is not possible is there a court ombudsman you can contact? No. Welcome to America!
So you reason that there is no way a foreclosure can go forward without the temporary stay being lifted. So you wait, keeping an eagle eye on the case Docket.
One day (30 months) down the line, an entry appears in the Docket announcing a Hearing/Trial on your motion to stay and dismiss the foreclosure.
You call the court for clarification. Nothing. You grow suspicious. You call a few family and friends to accompany you to the court. They agree. The law says that every judicial event must be recorded. Having witnesses around guarantees that whatever takes place will be recorded.
On the appointed day you head to the court with your entourage. You had a reasonably good idea what to expect: the hearing should take 20 minutes (max). A foreclosure in Maryland (through the “Power of Sale”) is normally an expedited nonjudicial process. A lender has alerted a foreclosure specialist (a Substitute Trustee) that you have defaulted on a loan. There is no dispute as to the amount owed. You have been given adequate time to cure the default but you have failed to do so. The lender is the verifiable owner of the mortgage. All the documents are the originals and correct (no photocopies, etc.). So the Substitute Trustee swears an oath as to the veracity of these claims and proceeds with the foreclosure.
A Court will intervene only if the borrower alerts the court that there are issues with the claims of the Substitute Trustee. A judge then enters the case and by visual inspection examines the foreclosure documents. If the claims of the Substitute Trustees are verified the court gives them the go-ahead. Otherwise, the court halts the foreclosure and dismisses the Substitute Trustees attempt to foreclose on your property through an expedited process. If the foreclosure is halted, a lender may file a claim in regular court and go through a longer procedure to exercise his/her rights under the mortgage.
So you enter the courtroom reasonably confident. You are armed the Modified Mortgage note which is not notarized and recorded and which the Substitute Trustee had conveniently omitted from the documents presented.
At the courthouse you and your entourage struggle to find the courtroom. It is located in the Family Law division. You say to yourself: this is curious because this a a civil case. You finally locate the courtroom. You enter and see four people seated with boxes of documents. You don’t see any of the attorneys for the Substitute Trustees. You wonder whether you are in the right place.
A Judge enters the room. You recognize him immediately. He is a very scary ghost from your divorce case two decades prior. He announces your case. He asks the group of the Plaintiff’s side to introduce themselves. Two are lawyers from the lenders. One is a handwriting expert. The fourth is an employee of the lender. By this time, you are truly confused.
The Judge explains the procedure to be followed. You will be called to make an opening statement. Please be brief. Then the Plaintiffs will make theirs. The Plaintiffs will present their witnesses( of course you have no witnesses). You are free to cross-examine the plaintiff’s witnesses. In the mean time, the Judge asks if either side has documents to distribute. You are handed a huge folder. You have nothing but a copy of the unrecorded mortgage note so you hand it in. We will not bore you with more details. The court transcript exists and it is also public record.
The Trial takes a full day. The judge schedules the following day to announce his verbal verdict. You are again accompanied. The verdict is read. It is unambiguous. You have woefully failed to prove that the signature is a forgery. The testimony of the handwriting expert is unimpeachable. The employee of the big bank had also very convincingly demonstrated that the big bank did you a big favor by modifying your loan. We also checked your hospital records (We forgot to add that on the day that you supposedly signed the agreement you were hospitalized in intensive care!) and the hospital records show that you were not in a coma. Therefore, you were physically able to sign the agreement. Thus, your motion to stay and dismiss the foreclosure is DENIED!
You have no lawyer. Frankly you can no longer afford one. Besides, you have grown deeply distrustful of attorneys. But surely this ruling cannot be allowed to stand. You file an immediate appeal.
Recall that the Substitute Trustees (the plaintiffs on the foreclosure case and now the Appellees on the Appeal) had not even bothered to show up at the Hearing/Trial. They did not file a reply brief on the Appeal either. The lawyers for the lender also failed to file a reply to the Appeal. Normally, the Appellate Court should have vacated the ruling and sent the case back to the lower court. The Appellate court decided to do something unusual. It arranged oral arguments on the Appeal. The attorney for the lender was in attendance.
The recording of the Oral Argument is public record. Watch as the judges set a huge trap for the lawyer of the lender because you keep insisting that your motion to stop the foreclosure was granted! Watch also as the lawyer for the lender describes in minute detail what has transpired since the filing of the Appeal.
The Oral Argument ended with the understanding that the lower court would clarify whether the foreclosure was permanently stayed or only temporarily. But alas, still no judge assigned to the case. The case Docket remans open. This also is America.
https://mdcourtswwwarchive.file.core.windows.net/cosappeals/media/20231010_1505.mp4?sv=2021-06-08&ss=f&srt=o&sp=r&se=2032-08-31T00:14:37Z&st=2022-08-30T16:14:37Z&spr=https&sig=eUWOE%2B%2BxoX6K5%2BZINJqXXi%2FSjcVyfpRqphC3iyCKwH4%3D
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A JUDICIAL HORROR STORY: A GHANAIAN’S RUDE AWAKENING
What happens in Ghanaian courts is child’s play! Let me paint you a brief scenario. You discover that a big bank has “modified” and forged your signature to a mortgage on your property. Because the signature is forged, the signature is not notarized. And because the signature on the modified mortgage is not notarized, the modified mortgage is not recorded. You cry foul and refuse to honor the mortgage. The Bank denies the signature is forged and attempts to “foreclose” on your property. So you hire an excellent lawyer (online because it was during COVID times) who files a motion to stop the foreclosure.
It should be a no-brainer. The (modified) mortgage note is not recorded. So the foreclosure should be stopped immediately. Months and tens of thousands of dollars later your lawyer keeps telling you that the Court indeed stopped the foreclosure but “only temporarily”. Incredulous, you finally check the Docket for the case and realize that (1) the court did indeed stop the foreclosure permanently. (2) That your brilliant lawyer and the lawyer for the big bank through “Stipulation” had a “stipulated Order” signed (by whom?) to the effect that the foreclosure is stopped only temporarily. Therefore, the case Docket is still Open and what appears to be a “foreclosure” (actually a series of motions to extend the scheduled date for a foreclosure hearing) is still ongoing. (3) In the mean time your brilliant lawyer, sensing that you are on to the truth resigns and vanishes into thin air.
And here is where the horror story begins. You try to hire a lawyer (many lawyers) to reverse the damage. At first they are scandalized by what you show them. Then they contact the other side (the lawyer for the big bank) and they back out of the case. Finally you say okay I will handle this myself. You file a Motion (under the foreclosure docket). Months go by. No response. You contact the Court. You attempt to find the Judge assigned to the case. No judge is assigned to the case. You ask how it is possible to have an Open case with no substantive judge assigned? You are told it happens. You ask who handles motions filed under the case? You are told it is the “duty judge”. So you ask to see the duty Judge (you know it is useless because the duty judges rotate) but in any case the answer is no. You say this is not possible is there a court ombudsman you can contact? No. Welcome to America!
So you reason that there is no way a foreclosure can go forward without the temporary stay being lifted. So you wait, keeping an eagle eye on the case Docket.
One day (30 months) down the line, an entry appears in the Docket announcing a Hearing/Trial on your motion to stay and dismiss the foreclosure.
You call the court for clarification. Nothing. You grow suspicious. You call a few family and friends to accompany you to the court. They agree. The law says that every judicial event must be recorded. Having witnesses around guarantees that whatever takes place will be recorded.
On the appointed day you head to the court with your entourage. You had a reasonably good idea what to expect: the hearing should take 20 minutes (max). A foreclosure in Maryland (through the “Power of Sale”) is normally an expedited nonjudicial process. A lender has alerted a foreclosure specialist (a Substitute Trustee) that you have defaulted on a loan. There is no dispute as to the amount owed. You have been given adequate time to cure the default but you have failed to do so. The lender is the verifiable owner of the mortgage. All the documents are the originals and correct (no photocopies, etc.). So the Substitute Trustee swears an oath as to the veracity of these claims and proceeds with the foreclosure.
A Court will intervene only if the borrower alerts the court that there are issues with the claims of the Substitute Trustee. A judge then enters the case and by visual inspection examines the foreclosure documents. If the claims of the Substitute Trustees are verified the court gives them the go-ahead. Otherwise, the court halts the foreclosure and dismisses the Substitute Trustees attempt to foreclose on your property through an expedited process. If the foreclosure is halted, a lender may file a claim in regular court and go through a longer procedure to exercise his/her rights under the mortgage.
So you enter the courtroom reasonably confident. You are armed the Modified Mortgage note which is not notarized and recorded and which the Substitute Trustee had conveniently omitted from the documents presented.
At the courthouse you and your entourage struggle to find the courtroom. It is located in the Family Law division. You say to yourself: this is curious because this a a civil case. You finally locate the courtroom. You enter and see four people seated with boxes of documents. You don’t see any of the attorneys for the Substitute Trustees. You wonder whether you are in the right place.
A Judge enters the room. You recognize him immediately. He is a very scary ghost from your divorce case two decades prior. He announces your case. He asks the group of the Plaintiff’s side to introduce themselves. Two are lawyers from the lenders. One is a handwriting expert. The fourth is an employee of the lender. By this time, you are truly confused.
The Judge explains the procedure to be followed. You will be called to make an opening statement. Please be brief. Then the Plaintiffs will make theirs. The Plaintiffs will present their witnesses( of course you have no witnesses). You are free to cross-examine the plaintiff’s witnesses. In the mean time, the Judge asks if either side has documents to distribute. You are handed a huge folder. You have nothing but a copy of the unrecorded mortgage note so you hand it in. We will not bore you with more details. The court transcript exists and it is also public record.
The Trial takes a full day. The judge schedules the following day to announce his verbal verdict. You are again accompanied. The verdict is read. It is unambiguous. You have woefully failed to prove that the signature is a forgery. The testimony of the handwriting expert is unimpeachable. The employee of the big bank had also very convincingly demonstrated that the big bank did you a big favor by modifying your loan. We also checked your hospital records (We forgot to add that on the day that you supposedly signed the agreement you were hospitalized in intensive care!) and the hospital records show that you were not in a coma. Therefore, you were physically able to sign the agreement. Thus, your motion to stay and dismiss the foreclosure is DENIED!
You have no lawyer. Frankly you can no longer afford one. Besides, you have grown deeply distrustful of attorneys. But surely this ruling cannot be allowed to stand. You file an immediate appeal.
Recall that the Substitute Trustees (the plaintiffs on the foreclosure case and now the Appellees on the Appeal) had not even bothered to show up at the Hearing/Trial. They did not file a reply brief on the Appeal either. The lawyers for the lender also failed to file a reply to the Appeal. Normally, the Appellate Court should have vacated the ruling and sent the case back to the lower court. The Appellate court decided to do something unusual. It arranged oral arguments on the Appeal. The attorney for the lender was in attendance.
The recording of the Oral Argument is public record. Watch as the judges set a huge trap for the lawyer of the lender because you keep insisting that your motion to stop the foreclosure was granted! Watch also as the lawyer for the lender describes in minute detail what has transpired since the filing of the Appeal.
The Oral Argument ended with the understanding that the lower court would clarify whether the foreclosure was permanently stayed or only temporarily. But alas, still no judge assigned to the case. The case Docket remans open. This also is America.
https://mdcourtswwwarchive.file.core.windows.net/cosappeals/media/20231010_1505.mp4?sv=2021-06-08&ss=f&srt=o&sp=r&se=2032-08-31T00:14:37Z&st=2022-08-30T16:14:37Z&spr=https&sig=eUWOE%2B%2BxoX6K5%2BZINJqXXi%2FSjcVyfpRqphC3iyCKwH4%3D
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