WASHINGTON – Obama Administration officials and state attorneys general from 49 states and the District of Columbia are hailing a sweeping $26 billion mortgage settlement this morning with five of the nation’s largest banks. Housing secretary Shaun Donovan said the settlement will punish those big banks that were irresponsible but also require them to help the people they harmed by funding efforts to help home owners stay in their homes Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt said the settlement will provide $50 million in relief to more than 4,000 Kansas families who lost their homes to foreclosure and to help others struggling to keep their houses out of foreclosure. “This settlement will not help every homeowner who suffered foreclosure during the Great Recession, nor does it resolve every claim of misconduct against lenders or mortgage servicers,” Schmidt said. “But it’s a dramatic step forward that will help many Kansans and will hold major financial institutions that played fast-and-loose with people’s lives accountable for their actions.” The settlement was negotiated over the past 16 months by state attorneys general and representatives of the five mortgage servicers: Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Citibank, Wells Fargo, and Ally Financial (GMAC); and resolves allegations of robo-signing foreclosure affidavits and misconduct in the servicing of residential mortgage loans. Schmidt said eligible Kansans will be contacted and offered the chance to file a claim. Kansans can find more information online at www.ksag.org/mortgage or by calling the Attorney General’s Consumer Protection Hotline at (800) 432-2310. Schmidt said the settlement does not grant any immunity from criminal offenses and will not affect criminal prosecutions. The agreement does not prevent homeowners or investors from pursuing individual, institutional or class action civil cases against the five mortgage servicers. The settlement must be approved by a federal judge. Critics say the settlement will let the banks off the hook for massive fraud and the dollar amount is far short of the profits the big banks made from the fraud and doesn’t cover the total cost of repairing the harm to homeowners.
Thursday, Feb. 9, 8 p.m.
