Mortgage foreclosure settlement

Homeowners will no longer stand alone in bearing the burden of the housing downturn. The five largest mortgage servicing companies recently agreed to a $25billion settle met over some questionable mortgage loan servicing and foreclosure practices. Violations included in this settlement include

• Robo-signing of affidavits in foreclosure proceedings
• deceptive practices in the offering of loan modifications
• Failures to offer non-foreclosure alternatives before foreclosing on borrowers with federally insured mortgages
• and filing improper documentation in federal bankruptcy court.

The settlement also frees up state and federal prosecutors to focus on investigating the main cause of the housing crisis and holding accountable the financial firms responsible.

Under the mortgage foreclosure settlement, the mortgage servicers are mandated to collectively dedicate 25billion toward various forms of financial relief of homeowners.

• 17 billion funds for principal reductions and other forms of relief.
• $3 billion to help homeowners refinance loans to today’s lower market rates.
• $1.5 billion in cash payments to 750,000 borrowers who were directly impacted by these violations of the foreclosure process.
• $3.5 billion to federal and state governments to help fund state actions to mitigate the housing crisis.

The current mortgage foreclosure settlement is a solution for homeowners who are in the process of foreclosure and those that have been evicted from their homes. Majorly, the assistance will be directed to decreasing the outstanding loan balances of approximately 1 million homeowners with mortgages that are short or more than the value of their properties.

The settlement also ensures that the banks that were responsible for the lending abuses and fraud that were the main causes of the holding bubble face the consequences. The settlement implements national mortgage servicing standards that need enhanced communication between servicers and borrowers, formalized processes to safeguard the rights of homeowners during foreclosure proceedings, and a prohibition against dual-tracking (the process of foreclosing on a homeowner who is negotiating a loan modification).

The settlement also creates strong incentives for the funds to be disbursed quickly, as there are benchmarks in place against which the banks will be judged (and penalized), with all funds being required to be allocated within three years.