The VLW Blog

The effort to require recordation of mortgage assignments in court records is finally dead. Sen. Chap Petersen, D-Fairfax, managed to resurrect his proposal, Senate Bill 838, that would have required the recordation of mortgage assignments in court records yesterday. The bill had been voted down in subcommittee, 4-3, but the full Senate Courts Committee passed [...]

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So much for foreclosure reform. All that appears to be left of a slew of bills in the House and Senate is SB 837, which would create a civil cause of action against a person who knowingly uses a false document in support of foreclosure. That bill, with Chap Petersen, D-Fairfax, as patron, survived after [...]

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A lawyer trying to locate evidence to bolster his lending fraud case stepped over the line when he met with a witness that he knew was represented by counsel in a related matter, a federal judge has ruled. The evidence obtained by Michigan lawyer David Binkley – in part through a clandestine meeting in a [...]

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An Augusta County man facing eviction from his foreclosed home brandished a novel legal weapon to try to halt the proceedings, to no avail. Daniel Taylor, who counts himself part of the “sovereign citizen” movement, told Circuit Judge Victor Ludwig he had a writ of injunction to block the bank from taking possession of his [...]

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Bank of America has suspended foreclosure sales nationwide pending a review of foreclosure documents in all 50 states, an action that may be triggering foreclosure holds with other institutions. Spokesman Richard G. Simon with the Charlotte-based bank on Friday told North Carolina Lawyers Weekly the bank would “stop foreclosure sales until our assessment has been [...]

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An unusual claim to land ownership will not face a challenge in Alexandria Circuit Court, reports the Alexandria Sanitation Authority. The utility has agreed to pay $36 million to a company formed by real estate developer Charles Hooff and Alexandria land use attorney Bernard Fagelson for a 10-acre parcel next door to the Alexandria wastewater [...]

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For those of you who suspect that the Supreme Court of Virginia has never seen an easement dispute that it didn’t think merited its attention, we have three more examples today. One, Hafner v. Hansen, involves what seems to be the court’s all-time favorite topic, an easement by prescription, or what a property owner hoped [...]

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A William & Mary law professor used legal “mumbo jumbo” to undermine the authority of the Kingsmill Community Services Association, accused the group’s lawyer in a letter delivered by police . The professor fires back, saying the tactic is a “bush-league attempt at intimidation.” The battle of legal letters has erupted as residents of James [...]

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A property owners association may be powerless to collect assessments from community landowners to pay for road improvements, but at least it’s not liable for racketeering in the attempt, according to a ruling yesterday from the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The Dogwood Valley Citizens Association tried to make assessments against property owners in [...]

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A dissenting sibling in a dispute over the disposition of a family farm must share in the costs of a subdivision plan when the plan helped to increase the value of the property, the Supreme Court of Virginia holds. As we reported in November , the family of a deceased Loudoun county physician could not [...]

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