There is no single landmark Covius lawsuit, but the company’s subsidiary Nationwide Title Clearing (NTC) settled a robo-signing case brought by the Illinois Attorney General in 2013 for $350,000, and NTC’s document practices have continued to surface in individual foreclosure disputes since then. Covius, a Denver-based mortgage services company formerly known as LenderLive, acquired NTC in 2021 — years after the Illinois consent decree was entered.1National Mortgage Professional. Covius Holdings to Acquire Nationwide Title Clearing
The Illinois Attorney General Case Against NTC
In February 2012, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan sued Nationwide Title Clearing in Cook County Chancery Court (Case No. 12 CH 03602), alleging consumer fraud and deceptive trade practices. The complaint called NTC a “document production factory” running assembly-line procedures to process mortgage paperwork.2Courthouse News Service. Illinois AG Goes After Robo-Signer
The state alleged that NTC employees signed thousands of mortgage documents daily without reading or verifying them. It further alleged that employees were falsely designated as “vice presidents” or “assistant vice presidents” of financial institutions solely for signing purposes, despite having no actual authority at those institutions, and that in some instances signatures were affixed to documents without the named signers being present.2Courthouse News Service. Illinois AG Goes After Robo-Signer
The case ended in a consent decree entered on October 31, 2013. NTC agreed to pay $350,000 to the Illinois Attorney General’s office and to give every document recorded in Illinois county offices a substantive review, meaning the signatory must read, understand, and review each document before it is recorded. NTC also had to set up a toll-free consumer hotline and keep a log of calls for at least 24 months. NTC did not admit liability.3Chicago Tribune. Nationwide Title Clearing Settles Robo-Signing Suit in Illinois
Parallel Investigations and a Retracted Blog Post
Illinois was not the only regulator looking at NTC. In May 2011, both the Illinois Attorney General and New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman opened investigations into the company’s document practices. The probes came during a national reckoning over robo-signing that had already forced GMAC Mortgage, JPMorgan Chase, and Bank of America to temporarily halt foreclosures in 2010 while they reviewed procedures.4Every CRS Report. Robo-Signing and the Foreclosure Crisis
Around the same time, Florida foreclosure attorney Matthew Weidner accused NTC on his blog of robo-signing and foreclosure fraud. NTC sued him for libel. Weidner retracted his statements, saying they had been based on “general misinformation that appeared elsewhere in the press and on the internet,” and NTC dropped the lawsuit.5National Mortgage Professional. Florida Attorney Retracts Robo-Signing Allegations Against Nationwide Title Clearing
Allegations of Forged Assignments After the Settlement
Homeowners have continued to challenge NTC-prepared documents in individual foreclosure cases. In Fedorova v. Foley, et al. (Case No. 1:22-cv-991, W.D. Mich.), Elena Fedorova challenged the foreclosure of her Barry County, Michigan property. She alleged that a mortgage assignment recorded on May 30, 2020, in which MERS, as nominee for the dissolved lender Perl Mortgage, Inc., assigned her mortgage to PennyMac Loan Services, was a “flagrantly forged” document prepared by Nationwide Title Clearing Corporation.6GovInfo. Fedorova v. Foley, et al., Case No. 1:22-cv-991
Fedorova’s complaint described NTC as a “document forgery mill” and alleged the assignment was executed in the name of an entity that had already been dissolved. She asked the court to expunge the mortgage and the assignment from Barry County records.6GovInfo. Fedorova v. Foley, et al., Case No. 1:22-cv-991 These are the plaintiff’s allegations. The court document available is a report and recommendation on PennyMac’s motion to dismiss, and the allegations have not been established at trial.
How NTC Became Part of Covius
Covius did not own NTC when the Illinois case was filed or settled. The company was still called LenderLive Holdings until October 2018, when it rebranded as Covius.7HousingWire. LenderLive Rebrands as Covius1National Mortgage Professional. Covius Holdings to Acquire Nationwide Title Clearing8HousingWire. Radian Continues Restructuring, Sells Clayton Services to Covius
NTC now operates as a Covius subsidiary, handling lien release preparation, collateral research, and document processing for mortgage clients.9Covius. About Us
BBB Record
Covius holds a D- rating from the Better Business Bureau and is not BBB-accredited. As of the BBB profile’s last update, the company had failed to respond to two complaints filed against it, and its BBB file was opened on April 28, 2020.10Better Business Bureau. Covius BBB Business Profile Covius is a business-to-business service provider, so consumer complaint volume is naturally low, which makes the unresponded complaints and the low rating the useful data points rather than the count itself.