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#Fail – Government Plan to Help #Florida Homeowners

Why is the Independent Foreclosure Review a Big Fail Whale

The Independent Foreclosure Review Gets Fail Whale

At first glance, it looks like Florida foreclosure victims are finally getting the help they need from the feds. Reading the fine print it looks like if we had to describe this in one tweet word: #fail. The same banksters that sunk the economic ship into the mortgage crisis are now the decision makers for homeowners looking for foreclosure mercy. Sounds to us like homeowners are being asked to sleep with the enemy.

What is the Independent Foreclosure Review?According to the official website

 

As part of a consent order with federal bank regulators, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), the Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS) (independent bureaus of the U.S. Department of the Treasury), or the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, fourteen mortgage servicers and their affiliates are identifying customers who were part of a foreclosure action on their primary residence during the period of January 1, 2009 to December 31, 2010.

The Independent Foreclosure Review is providing homeowners the opportunity to request an independent review of their foreclosure process. If the review finds that financial injury occurred as a result of errors, misrepresentations or other deficiencies in the servicer’s foreclosure process, the customer may receive compensation or other remedy.

Oppenheim Law Says Faulty Failure? The Independent Foreclosure Plan

Unfortunately, the government has again come up with yet another faulty plan to try and help homeowners by creating the Independent Foreclosure Review. It’s objective is to compensate homeowners who sustained financial injury because of the banks unethical and even illegal banking practices.

The two agencies (the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Federal Reserve) that are in charge of overseeing this program have gone out of their way to keep the details of this program secret. If the program is not transparent and above-board, how can homeowners be sure their interests are being preserved??

Blurry details for Florida Homeowners

However, if we look into the released details of the program, there are major problems that will make the government’s effort to provide relief to homeowners practically nonexistent. For one, even for the agencies running this effort, the type of compensation is still unclear. Homeowners will not know if they should expect to receive monetary compensation for their financial injury or just non-monetary compensations such as repairing their credit scores.

What also remains unclear is how the compensation will be calculated. The bank practices and bank errors that the consultants will address have also been kept under wraps. Without such information, how are the borrowers and attorneys suppose to decide whether entering into this program right for them?

The most alarming issue is the possible conflict of interest between the consulting firms that were chosen by bank regulators to administer the foreclosure reviews. The fact is these consulting firms are actually getting paid by the banks. And while bank regulators claim they will make sure the consulting firms act independently of the banks, how is this any different than the questionable practices of the auditing firms that are hired by the very companies they are suppose to audit or as Florida Real Estate Attorney Roy Oppenheim has pointed out in his soon to be published law review article, Deconstructing the Black Magic of Securitized Trusts , the credit rating agencies like Moody’s Bond Rating Service, who had “their vested interest in giving securities an inflated credit rating, considering that were paid by large lenders to rate these securities.”

No Experience Required

There are also concerns that the personnel hired to conduct the reviews are not sufficiently competent to identify whether a bank engaged in illegal conduct. The consulting firms are demanding very little experience in foreclosure or mortgage-servicing, however, in doing so; they will be hiring personnel that are no different than the bank employees who engaged in robo-signing.

Even with the few details about the program, it is easy to see that it is likely to fail. The same banks that ultimately led the economy into the mortgage crisis are now in control of deciding which homeowners are entitled to compensation for the banks own wrongdoings. It is doubtful homeowners will receive any meaningful relief from this program.

Thus, at the end of the day, and as always, Florida homeowners looking for relief will continue to have to rely on themselves to construct their own personal bailout plan. If you need assistance please feel free to contact Oppenheim Law for guidance.

Tags: Independent Foreclosure Review

5 responses to “#Fail – Government Plan to Help #Florida Homeowners”

  1. Gregory Williams says:

    What about audits, do they help hold the lender accountable if there violations?

  2. Carmella-BOA Hater says:

    I was really hopeful when I found out about this program, but of course my bubble was burst really fast!

    I called on 11/7 and requested to be reviewed as their website states, they told me I was already in their file to be sent a letter for review, and they just happened to be sending me a letter that same day.( YAY!!) As previously scheduled my house was set for foreclosure sale on the 8th, and it was taken back by the bank. So, I never received this letter for this program,so I  called today, the 16th, and they told me the filed was pulled back by the bank “last week” due to changes they had to make…..so it delayed the letter. OHHHH but wait, it went out 2 days ago on the 14th. So now I will spend my time filling out 5 pages of what ever they ask when this letter comes…..Ha Ha Ha, for what?

    For almost 3 years I was like a puppet to BOA-jumping at their every command, and in the end they took my house back…..that I could MORE than afford to pay for !!! What is the OCC going to do about that???

    The banks should be forced to pay us for all of the expenses that we occured, as well as pain and suffering!  BOA, Brian Moynahan and Obama should rot in hell with high blood pressure! 

    Summary
    NO FAITH in this program !!!
    1.  ask these people anything and they do not have answers….no difference than BOA !!!
    2. The bank should not have the right to pull back the files to make any  changes even though it was probably to add that they took the house back.  I can understand adding updates, but they should be sent as addendums.

    OCC = another government department that came up with another program that will not help anyone…..they should have been on this before thousands of people lost their homes who did not deserve to.

    If they want to help, effective immediately the OCC should:
    *Make the banks respond to offers on short sales and forclosures with in 24/48 hours.
    *Stop all of these CASH ONLY requirements.  Most people do not have piles of cash laying around to make offers and wait 6-8 months for responses!!! on a house that has been gutted by a previous homeowner, who needed to see everything to find another place to live!!!
    *Make the banks look at people’s credit preforclosure…and give us the opportunity to purchase a home again.

    A BOA hater!! (in case you can’t tell)

        

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  4. Jd Brown2017 says:

    I recently found out how this process works.  RUST receives your complt and the docs you have that support your case.  Then they forward them on to the bank and the banks will then if your lucky forward them on to the consulting firm.  I have been filing complts against BOA for over 4 years and they always seem to lie themselves out of anything being done.  This just seems another of the banks getting their way