What is the stamp on the promissory note that wasn't there when I originally signed the note. I have a copy before and after.

That is an endorsement. Notes are bought, sold and traded, and the process entails endorsing the note in favor of the new owner. It is comprable to endorsing a check which is made payable to you to someone else. It changes the ownership of the obligation, but not the obligation.

If is often true however, that the secondary mortgage market is often sloppy about the details, and at times are sufficently sloppy that a properly defended case can prevent foreclosure. There have been some particularly good decisions coming out of some Ohio courts.

There are attorneys who specialize in foreclsoure defense and financial services litigation. Check the web site of the National Association of Consumer Advocates, www.naca.net to find someone there who specializes in foreclosure defense.

The prior answer is not exactly true. When you handed the note back to the bank, it made its way up the ranks, until it reached my department. In my department, we stamped at least 125-130 of these per day. Then we would make a deposit to a special account where the value of the note was created by computer entry. Think of it like writing a check to the bank, except the bank keeps the money and doesn't tell you. At this point, you just paid the bank the value of the note.

Then it made its way to my desk, where I did 2 things:

First, if it was a mortgage (and most were), the property is required by law to be free of all liens and encumberances before it can be sold. So, I personally had to write a check to a legal trust controlled by our legal dept, BACKED BY YOUR PROMISSORY NOTE, and the legal dept used that money to remove all prior liens to get around the law.

Second, I had to make some computer entries so you can get your money. The entries I made alerted the Federal Reserve that new "credit" had just been created. So, we gave them the promissory note in exchange for your money, which you thought was a loan. Someone from my dept wired the money to your local branch and a check was written to you. You walk away thinking the bank was gracious enough to loan you their money. It was actually your money all along.

So, to answer the question if the stamp changes the loan agreement. No, it doesn't change the actual agreement. What it does is, it proves they commited fraud by concealing this transaction from the agreement. Multiple frauds are commited on each transaction, except if you tried to do that, you would go to jail.

Now, in response to the previous answer. That was just laughable. The stamp on the note is a deposit stamp, which means it was transferred from the borrower to the bank, not from one bank to another. Yes, banks do sell notes, but to make this gentleman think that stamp is proof of sale, is just outright laughable. I did this every day for 15 years, so I have no interest in concealing this information anymore.