The House Financial Services Committee has voted to kill two foreclosure relief programs. The FHA Refinance Program Termination Act (H.R. 830) targets the Federal Housing Administration's (FHA) Short Refi Program, which allows homeowners who own more on their loan than the property is worth to refinance into a new FHA-insured mortgage as long as their [...]

HSBC Holdings, Europe's biggest bank, has suspended U.S. foreclosures after "certain deficiencies" were found in the company's processing, preparation and signing of affidavits and "other documents supporting foreclosures." In other words, it sounds like another robo-signing type scandal in which foreclosures are simply pumped as quickly as possible through the court system. In response to [...]

Back in 2008 when the foreclosure crisis first began to obliterate communities and families, the promise of helping homeowners avoid foreclosure seemed to be bright less than a year later. HAMP, a program specifically designed to stop foreclosures came onto the scene promising to help up to 5 million homeowners remain in their homes.  But [...]

Why is it that every few months a new battle over mortgage modification in bankruptcy pops up only to be crushed by the long reaching power of mortgage industry lobbyists?  The mortgage industry can't be convinced that we the people don't understand that the foreclosure crisis is directly related to homeowners being stuck with mortgages [...]

Starting June 1st mortgage servicers offering mortgage modifications will be required to get borrowers' financial documents upfront before they grant a trail modification.  Right now, borrowers facing foreclosure can receive temporary mortgage modifications based on the stated income they give the mortgage servicer over the phone.  The problem has been that while this will stall [...]

The National Mortgage Lenders Association and the National Council on Aging are training 125 counselors and will launch counseling projects in four cities designed to help elderly reverse mortgage borrowers avoid foreclosure related to the failure to pay property taxes and homeowners insurance.  The group will also try to work with private insurance firms to [...]

The news headlines are dotted with announcements of attorney generals around the country cracking down on foreclosure rescue scammers who charge upfront fees and then disappear without doing any of the things they promised. But what we don't hear about is the fact that many of these foreclosure scammers shut down by authorities simply resurface [...]

How To Cure The Foreclosure Crisis--Image via Wikipedia The foreclosure crisis is refusing to budge. Large volumes of foreclosures plague Texas and just about every other state in the union. But what can we do? Mortgage modifications have failed. Mortgage servicer incentives have failed. And of course, bank bailouts have failed. But maybe government-owned mortgage [...]

In a recent court ruling regarding the right of mortgage lenders to file foreclosure, the court said that mortgage lenders are required to make sure that they have the authority foreclose."What banks are going to have to do is make sure they've dotted their I's and crossed their T's before going through with a foreclosure," [...]

The Congressional Oversight Panel has issued a report, the HAMP mortgage modification program is failing and failing miserably. But this is of course something that most homeowners facing foreclosure already know. But the report went on to say: Instead of helping 3 million to 4 million struggling mortgage borrowers keep their homes, as originally projected, [...]