Widespread Abuse by Mortgage Servicers Hurts Homeowners, Investors, Taxpayers, Economy
Center for Responsible Lending
July 7, 2011
Mortgages servicers should be required to give every mortgage holder “a good-faith review of foreclosure alternatives” before taking steps to take his or her home, CRL president Michael Calhoun told Congress today.&p>
In testimony before the House Financial Services Committee’s Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit and Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, he recommended that servicers be required to do the following:
- exhaust alternatives before starting foreclosure proceedings
- disclose the numbers they use to calculate whether a mortgage holder qualifies for a loan modification rather than foreclosure
- provide meaningful, third-party reviews of loan modification denials
- give each customer a single point of contact during the loan modification process.
- end conflicts of interest in how they are paid and how they operate
For more information: Kathleen Day at (202) 349-1871 or kathleen.day@responsiblelending.org; or Charlene Crowell at (919) 313-8523 or charlene.crowell@responsiblelending.org.
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About the Center for Responsible Lending
The Center for Responsible Lending is a nonprofit, nonpartisan research and policy organization dedicated to protecting homeownership and family wealth by working to eliminate abusive financial practices. CRL is affiliated with Self-Help, one of the nation's largest community development financial institutions.
