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PNC Bank on Dual Highway in Hagerstown. (File photo / January 12, 2013) |
“Most of my clients move,” Bognar said. “Bankruptcy clients are very transient.”
Lenders agree to settlement
To qualify for a slice of the $3.3 billion to be paid directly to the former borrower, the loan must have been serviced by any of the 10 lenders who agreed to the latest settlement.
The 10 lenders are Aurora, Bank of America, Citibank, JPMorgan Chase, MetLife Bank, PNC, Sovereign, SunTrust, U.S. Bank and Wells Fargo, according to a statement by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and the Federal Reserve Board.
In addition to being lenders, the 10 are mortgage servicers collecting monthly payments and doing such work as maintaining records and following up on delinquencies.
“The agreement ensures that more than 3.8 million borrowers whose homes were in foreclosure in 2009 and 2010 with the participating servicers will receive cash compensation in a timely manner,” the OCC and the Federal Reserve Board said in the statement.
The 10 lenders are to pay the $8.5 billion into a fund. The $3.3 billion for borrowers and the $5.2 billion to encourage the loan modifications and such will come from that.
Unlike previous settlements with lenders, this time, the borrowers won’t have to prove there was any wrongdoing involved in how the lenders handled their loans, OCC spokesman Bryan Hubbard said Thursday.
“No, we’re not examining for error,” Hubbard said.
Looking for errors was the driving point of the so-called Independent Foreclosure Review ordered in April 2011 by federal banking regulators.
They required 14 banking organizations — including the 10 that have settled — to hire independent consultants to do a comprehensive review “to identify whether borrowers who were in the foreclosure process during 2009 and 2010 suffered financial injury due to errors, misrepresentations, or other deficiencies,” the Federal Reserve Board said.
“If the review finds that financial injury occurred, the borrower may receive compensation or other remedy,” the board said.
As a result of the consultants’ work, the 14 banking organizations began mailing letters in November 2011 to the 4.4 million borrowers across the nation who had been identified as “potentially eligible for an independent review.”
In the letter, each borrower was asked whether he or she wanted the independent review necessary to determine whether their loan had been handled wrongly.
Few replies to letters
Nearly 8,700 of those letters were mailed to people in the seven-county Tri-State area.
As it turned out, few people replied.
Just 476 borrowers — out of the 8,698 area residents sent letters — requested the independent foreclosure review, federal data shows.
Of the 476, a total of 91 came from Washington County borrowers; 154 from those in Frederick County, Md.; 121 from Berkeley County, W.Va.; 40 from Jefferson County, W.Va.; seven from Morgan County, W.Va.; 60 from Franklin County, Pa.; and three from Fulton County, Pa.
Of the 4.4 million letters sent out nationwide, just 495,000 borrowers requested the special reviews.
Lenders agree to settlement
To qualify for a slice of the $3.3 billion to be paid directly to the former borrower, the loan must have been serviced by any of the 10 lenders who agreed to the latest settlement.
The 10 lenders are Aurora, Bank of America, Citibank, JPMorgan Chase, MetLife Bank, PNC, Sovereign, SunTrust, U.S. Bank and Wells Fargo, according to a statement by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and the Federal Reserve Board.
In addition to being lenders, the 10 are mortgage servicers collecting monthly payments and doing such work as maintaining records and following up on delinquencies.
“The agreement ensures that more than 3.8 million borrowers whose homes were in foreclosure in 2009 and 2010 with the participating servicers will receive cash compensation in a timely manner,” the OCC and the Federal Reserve Board said in the statement.
The 10 lenders are to pay the $8.5 billion into a fund. The $3.3 billion for borrowers and the $5.2 billion to encourage the loan modifications and such will come from that.
Unlike previous settlements with lenders, this time, the borrowers won’t have to prove there was any wrongdoing involved in how the lenders handled their loans, OCC spokesman Bryan Hubbard said Thursday.
“No, we’re not examining for error,” Hubbard said.
Looking for errors was the driving point of the so-called Independent Foreclosure Review ordered in April 2011 by federal banking regulators.
They required 14 banking organizations — including the 10 that have settled — to hire independent consultants to do a comprehensive review “to identify whether borrowers who were in the foreclosure process during 2009 and 2010 suffered financial injury due to errors, misrepresentations, or other deficiencies,” the Federal Reserve Board said.
“If the review finds that financial injury occurred, the borrower may receive compensation or other remedy,” the board said.
As a result of the consultants’ work, the 14 banking organizations began mailing letters in November 2011 to the 4.4 million borrowers across the nation who had been identified as “potentially eligible for an independent review.”
In the letter, each borrower was asked whether he or she wanted the independent review necessary to determine whether their loan had been handled wrongly.
Few replies to letters
Nearly 8,700 of those letters were mailed to people in the seven-county Tri-State area.
As it turned out, few people replied.
Just 476 borrowers — out of the 8,698 area residents sent letters — requested the independent foreclosure review, federal data shows.
Of the 476, a total of 91 came from Washington County borrowers; 154 from those in Frederick County, Md.; 121 from Berkeley County, W.Va.; 40 from Jefferson County, W.Va.; seven from Morgan County, W.Va.; 60 from Franklin County, Pa.; and three from Fulton County, Pa.
Of the 4.4 million letters sent out nationwide, just 495,000 borrowers requested the special reviews.