Helping Homeowners Avoid Foreclosure
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Congresswoman Waters (CA), Ranking Member on the Subcommittee on Capital Markets and Government Sponsored Enterprises, today led 15 of her colleagues in the House of Representatives, renewing her call for U.S. bank regulators to publicly release information regarding the steps that mortgage servicers are taking to prevent illegal foreclosure practices.
Congresswoman Waters (CA), Ranking Member on the Subcommittee on Capital Markets and Government Sponsored Enterprises, today led 11 of her colleagues in the House of Representatives urging U.S. bank regulators to publicly release information regarding the steps that mortgage servicers are taking to prevent illegal foreclosure practices. An identical letter was sent by U.S. Senator Robert Menendez (NJ), Chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Housing, Transportation, and Community Development, and nine additional Senators.
Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) yesterday reintroduced H.R. 1567, the Foreclosure Prevention and Sound Mortgage Servicing Act of 2011. Congresswoman Waters has introduced similar legislation since the 110th Congress, and has long maintained that the servicing industry is broken. By reintroducing and updating the bill, Congresswoman Waters continues to demonstrate her commitment to ending the foreclosure crisis and holding servicers accountable.
by Jon Prior
Mortgage servicers may have to review as much as $535 billion in loans for possible remediation to borrowers who suffered financially from improper foreclosures, according to an estimate from the investment bank Keefe, Bruyette & Woods.
Remediation was one of the requirements of the consent orders signed between 14 mortgage servicers and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Federal Reserve after an investigation into foreclosure problems. The regulators found the problem had spread industry wide.
Federal banking regulators and the country's largest mortgage lenders have reached agreements aimed at addressing consumer complaints that the foreclosure process is unfair. Critics say it's not enough
By Alejandro Lazo and E. Scott Reckard
Citing "pervasive" misconduct in foreclosures, federal regulators have ordered the nation's biggest banks to overhaul their procedures and compensate borrowers injured financially by wrongdoing or negligence.
The four major bank regulators said their actions, to be followed by fines, wouldn't interfere with a wider-ranging investigation conducted by a coalition of state attorneys general and other federal agencies, including the departments of Justice, Treasury and Housing and the Federal Trade Commission.
By Dina ElBoghdady
Three federal agencies announced agreements with the nation's largest mortgage servicers Wednesday that aim to stem shoddy foreclosure practices. But the plans do not immediately impose financial penalties on the companies or force them to reduce the mortgage debt for troubled borrowers.
By Lorraine Woellert
The 14 largest U.S. mortgage servicers must pay back homeowners for losses from foreclosures or loans that were mishandled in the wake of the housing collapse, the first of a set of sanctions regulators are seeking against the companies.
The settlement announced today between servicers and banking regulators could help the U.S. Justice Department determine the size and scope of fines for the flawed practices, regulators said.
Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), a senior member of the Financial Services Committee, released the following statement today:
By Alan Zibel and Jeffrey Sparshott
The U.S. House voted Tuesday to end the Obama administration's main effort to assist troubled homeowners, with Republican lawmakers arguing that the program has failed to ease the foreclosure crisis.
The attempt to shut down the administration's flagship foreclosure-prevention effort, the Home Affordable Modification Program, or HAMP, is the last of four Republican attempts to shut down Obama administration efforts to prevent foreclosures or stabilize troubled neighborhoods.