Home owners interested in a free and independent foreclosure review now have an extra two months to put in their request. After nearly 200,000 individuals submitted their requests, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and the Federal Reserve Board made the decision to extend the deadline. The new deadline is September 30, 2012.
This review is meant for home owners who believe that are the victims of financial harm due to foreclosure servicing issues in between 2009 and 2010. The review will look at modifications that were not approved but should have been, errors that did not result in foreclosure but still led to financial harm, and lack of proper notification during the foreclosure process. In order to qualify for this review, the home in question must be the owner’s primary residence. Additionally, only those with loans serviced by participating lenders will qualify. More than 4.4 million letters have been sent on by the OCC targeting borrowers who may be eligible for this review. Additionally, they required servicers to pay for advertising calling attention to the review program.
The OCC first issued an order back on April 13, 2011 that targeted 12 mortgage servicers. Since then, nearly 200,000 people have opted in to the free review. According to the OCC, if it is discovered that financial harm did result from a faulty foreclosure process, home owners may be entitled to lump-sum payments, rescission of foreclosure, a loan modification, and/or corrections to their credit reports.
This independent foreclosure review is different from the $25 billion servicing settlement that targeted some of the largest servicers, including Bank of America, Citibank, JPMorgan Chase, and Wells Fargo. Combined, those four banks received penalties totaling more than $394 million. Currently, there are more than 150,000 files under review, and almost 12,000 files have already been completed.
