Press Releases

Both houses of the California Legislature today approved the Foreclosure Reduction Act, a bill designed to reduce unnecessary foreclosures in the state. The bill is the centerpiece legislation of Attorney General Kamala Harris' Homeowner Bill of Rights. "This is monumental," said CRL California Director Paul Leonard. "For the past three years, the legislature has said 'no' to making the foreclosure...

Legislation Will Level the Playing Field for Borrowers Across California, and Ensure That All Borrowers Get Full and Fair Consideration for Loan Modifications Six weeks of negotiations between banks, the bipartisan legislative conference committee, the Attorney General and consumer groups have produced a Homeowner Bill of Rights that deserves to pass both floors of the Legislature and be signed by...

A housing bill introduced in the Senate could more than double the number of homeowners who refinance under a federal mortgage program and also more than double their potential savings, according to an estimate by researchers at Columbia University. To be eligible, homeowners must have a mortgage backed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac and be current on the payments...

More than 80 percent of California homeowners who received modifications in 2010 stayed current and avoided re-default despite the continued recession, according to a new Center for Responsible Lending analysis. These new data indicate that the Homeowner Bill of Rights is critical for large numbers of borrowers, their communities and the overall California housing market. The legislation, which has undergone...

The remedies are deeply inadequate in fundamental ways. The money will too often be too little too late, particularly for borrowers who were wrongfully denied loan modifications. The federal bank regulators continue to withhold too many details from the public, when transparency would be to everyone's benefit. Further, the Sept. 31 st deadline to apply for compensation for borrowers who...

Californians need Attorney General Harris' Homeowner Bill of Rights to fix mortgage lending abuses and speed economic recovery. But lobbyists fighting it in Sacramento have now enlisted mortgage bankers from around the country to help them defeat it. (Read the e-mail sent by the Mortgage Action Alliance, the Mortgage Bankers Association's national e-advocacy division.) The MBA urged members nationwide to...

California's dire budget situation claimed a new casualty in the governor's May Revise yesterday: $410 million in bank penalty funds from the National Mortgage Settlement intended to assist California homeowners.The governor instead proposed to use the funds to reduce the state's deficit rather than to help borrowers access settlement programs. Attorney General Kamala Harris worked for well over a year...

Credit card losses in the current downturn mounted faster at banks using unfair, deceptive card practices, new CRL research finds. That's because high-cost penalty fees and interest rates were not used to mitigate risk—as credit card issuers claimed—but instead were the risk that led to higher default rates. Read the report, " Predatory Credit Card Lending: Unsafe, Unsound for Consumers...

Missourians hope to vote in November on a proposal to limit the interest rate on payday, car title, and installment loans. If successful, Missouri will be the fourth state in four years to approve a reduction of interest rates on payday loans from 400% annual interest to 36% or less. The other states include Montana, Arizona, and Ohio, and in...

Car dealers often target consumers with poor or no credit for yo-yo scams, a new CRL report demonstrates. "Yo-yo scams occur when a dealer leads a car buyer to believe financing is final," says CRL senior researcher Delvin Davis, author of the report, Deal or No Deal: How Yo-Yo Scams Rig the Game against Car Buyers. "The dealer lures the...