Announcing the first-ever unified advocacy movement across New York State!!!

The MBA NENY is hosting this statewide event to address law makers in Albany on June 4, 2013.  Mortgage Banker professionals are coming to Albany to bring awareness to Legislators/representatives of  Districts across the state on laws that affect how we do business in New York.  Among topics to be addressed are NYS High Cost Loan test limits; Foreclosure Moratorium Bills; NYS State Testing andTransitional Licensing.

If you are a Mortgage  Professional and would like to join us on MBA Advocacy Day, registrations are accepted online at www.mbaneny.com/events/home.  

SPONSORS WANTED!!!  Sponsorships help defray the costs of the event for those able to be present to lobby on behalf of our industry.

GOLD       $500

SILVER    $250

BRONZE  $150

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About a dozen banks will start making billions in payments to  homeowners next week as part of a settlement over shoddy foreclosure  practices.

About 4.2 million borrowers are expected to receive about $3.6 billion —  payments ranging from $300 to $125,000 — from 11 mortgage servicers starting  April 12 as part of a January agreement reached by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Federal Reserve  Board.

The agreement provides cash payments to borrowers whose homes were in any  stage of the foreclosure process in 2009 or 2010 and whose mortgages were  serviced by Aurora, Bank of America, Citibank, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, JPMorgan  Chase, MetLife Bank, Morgan Stanley, PNC, Sovereign, SunTrust, U.S. Bank and  Wells Fargo.

More than 90 percent of the total payments to borrowers at 11 of those  servicers are expected to have been sent by the end of the month.

Checks will be sent in several waves beginning with 1.4 million checks April  12. The final batch is expected to go out in mid-July.

No information has been announced yet about payments from Goldman Sachs and  Morgan Stanley but details are expected soon.

Several House Democrats, including House Financial Services ranking member  Maxine Waters (Calif.), is pressing federal regulators to explain why they  offered up the deal and chose to terminate the Independent Foreclosure  Review (IFR), which was a more detailed program designed to examine millions of  cases and determine what happened.

But regulators argued that the process was painstakingly slow and the money  wouldn't get to homeowners at a reasonable pace.

Borrowers who accept payments will still be able to take action related to  their foreclosure. Servicers are not allowed to ask borrowers to waive any legal  claims they may have against their servicer in connection with accepting  payment.

In determining the payment amounts, borrowers were categorized according to  the stage of their foreclosure process and the type of possible servicer  error.

While the agreement ended the IFR for the 13 companies in the agreement, the  review continues for OneWest, Everbank and GMAC Mortgage.

Story by Vicki Needham

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