Homeowners Wronged By Banking Fraud Are Missing Their Independent Foreclosure Review Letter and Gaining Mortgage Help and Reimbursement Funds

New Independent Foreclosure Review Program details from The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. Home Destination, Certified Distressed Property Expert, and professional Realtor for RE/MAX Results, works to help distressed homeowners understand if they are victims of wrongful foreclosures, avoid banking fraud, and gain accessible mortgage help.

Anna Alvarez Boyd of the Federal Reserve explains the Independent Foreclosure Review Program

"Even if your foreclosure has already been
completed, there may be an opportunity to have your loan file reviewed. If the review finds
errors in how your foreclosure was handled, you may be eligible to receive compensation." ~ Anna Alvarez Boyd

Minneapolis, Minnesota (PRWEB) June 26, 2012

Homeowners can find help for foreclosure action taken between January 1, 2009 and December 31, 2010. Different from the $26 billion National Mortgage Settlement, the Fed has required the 14 major servicers to hire independent consultants to make fair and impartial recommendations for financial remediation for affected borrowers. U.S. federal bank regulators, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) are pushing out new details on the program, new reminders, and have newly appointed members to serve our housing recovery efforts.

The Federal Reserve has extended the deadline for Independent Foreclosure Review applications to September, 30, 2012. Additionally, a financial remediation framework was released on June 21 that provides examples of errors in foreclosures covered by the regulators’ consent orders in the April 2011 regulations. Home Destination finds homeowners are quicker to engage the Independent Foreclosure Review Program after they understand it better.

New information add to the OCC website on June 21, 2012 states, "Remediation may include suspending a pending foreclosure or rescinding a completed foreclosure, providing lump-sum payments, reimbursing improper fees plus interest, providing a loan modification, and correcting credit reports and other errors in the borrowers’ records."

For homeowners who have shied away from the complaint process thinking reimbursement funds are too low, it may well be worth the effort. The OCC says, "lump-sum payments can range from $500 for lesser injuries to $125,000 plus equity in the most egregious cases."
Anna Alvarez Boyd, of the Federal Reserve spoke in a recent video to help mortgage borrowers’ gain and not miss out on available help. “It is free – beware of anyone asking you to pay for your Independent Foreclosure Review.”

Many wronged homeowners are missing out on recognizing their chance for help. According to the OCC, “by February 20, 2012, only 90,000 eligible homeowners had submitted claims. Surprisingly, these funds for struggling homeowners are going largely unnoticed. Only a fraction of the 4.4 million home loan borrowers potentially eligible for review have responded to solicitation letters sent out by the banks. As of May 31, only about 340,000 cases were slated for review, according to a progress report released for June by the Fed and the OCC. Through May 2012, nearly 4.4 million people were sent letters explaining how to request a free review of their loan files. Only 136,000 or 3 percent of qualifying borrowers who have been contacted have asked for the independent review.”

Reminders of the original letter informing homeowners that they are eligible for a review by an independent consultant and may be compensated are being sent. Homeowners qualify if:

You sent your loan payments to one of the mortgage servicers participating in this process.

The action to foreclose on your home was initiated, pending, or completed between January 1, 2009 and December 31, 2010. However, your home did not have to be sold to be eligible for the review.

The foreclosure occurred on your primary residence, which is the house where you lived for most the year. You do not need to live there now to be eligible for the review.

Jenna Thuening, owner of Home Destination, finds that, “some concerned that borrowers who receive the review form in the mail may not recognize it as a legitimate document. We are hoping that as the OCC releases another round of advertising and outreach to encourage borrowers who were victims of wrongful foreclosure to complete the forms, that we will see more homeowners send them in."

Even if mortgage borrowers didn’t file a request for review, they may be sent receive a letter and review form. Consultants are reviewing files from every servicer to find borrowers who suffered financial injury because of foreclosure errors and sending the letters out. Servicers will be required to compensate all injured borrowers identified as part of this review.

Homeowners can submit their application for the Independent Foreclosure Review online at http://www.IndependentForeclosureReview.com. To make it easier, the OCC says, "There were a number of changes made to integrated claims process to ensure a single, uniform process among the servicers".

Serving the housing recovery and homeowners, yesterday, The OCC announced that Carrie Moore has been named Director for Congressional Liaison. Also, yesterday Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke presided over a meeting where Jeremy C. Stein and Jerome H. Powell were formally sworn in as members of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.

Homeowners may contact Home Destination at 612-396-7832 for further assistance to file or respond to an Independent Foreclosure Review.