The Foreclosure Fraud Settlement, By The Numbers

[ProSense]

The Foreclosure Fraud Settlement, By The Numbers

By Pat Garofalo

Federal and state officials today will finally announce that they’ve reached a settlement with the nation’s biggest banks over the banks’ various foreclosure fraud abuses, such as “robo-signing” foreclosure documents and submitting falsely notarized documents to courts. The settlement has been in the works for several months, as a few key states — most notably California and New York — were holding out for tougher terms against the banks.

Here are some of the key numbers in the settlement, which is being officially announced at 10 a.m.:

49: States that have reportedly signed onto the settlement. The lone holdout is Oklahoma, as Attorney General Scott Pruitt (R) feels that the terms are too hard on the banks. Attorneys General Eric Schneidermann (D-NY), Kamala Harris (D-CA), and Beau Biden (D-DE) have thrown their support to the agreement, after opposing earlier versions for being too easy on the banks.

5: Banks covered by the settlement: Bank of America, Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup and Ally Financial.

$26 billion: The amount of the settlement. About $5 billion will be direct cash penalties, $1.5 billion of which will go directly to homeowners foreclosed upon between September 2008 and December 2011.

$17 billion: The amount of settlement money going toward reducing loan principal (the amount homeowners have outstanding on their mortgages) and mortgage modifications. Banks will not get dollar-for-dollar credit for every principal reduction, so HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan believes the deal will ultimately result in $30-$40 billion in real principal reduction.

$1,800 to $2,000: The amount going to homeowners who qualify for direct cash payments.

1 to 2 million: Homeowners expected to be aided by the settlement money, with one million receiving reduced loan balances or loan modifications and 750,000 receiving direct payments.

4 million: Americans who have been foreclosed upon since 2007.

-more-

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/02/09/421865/foreclosure-fraud-settlement-numbers/

Obama To Speak On Mortgage Settlement At 12:15 PM ET
http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entries/obama-to-speak-on-mortgage-settlement-at-12

[Earth_First]

1. You forgot this:

[tridim]

2. Waiting for more details, like do I have to contact the bank or is this automatic.

I was foreclosed in 2010, applied for several loan mods and never got any response from the bank other than "We never recieved you fax". That, and the bank foreclosed on a home they didn't legally own according to documentation on file.

[grahamhgreen]

3. These are the same banks that were part of the 16 TRILLION dollar FED bail out. Do the math.

Or was it 29 trillion?

"And that leads to the final way to measure the Fed's commitments to propping up Wall Street: add up every single damned loan, guarantee and asset purchase the Fed made to benefit banks, banksters, real Housewives on Wall Street, fraudsters, and their cousins, aunts and uncles. This gives us the cumulative Fed commitments....

And that is precisely what Nicola Matthews and James Felkerson have done. They are PhD students at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, working on a Ford Foundation grant under my direction, titled "A Research And Policy Dialogue Project On Improving Governance Of The Government Safety Net In Financial Crisis."

To my knowledge it is the most complete and accurate accounting of the Fed's bail-out. Their results will be reported in a series of Working Papers at the Levy Economics Institute (www.levy.org). The first one is titled "$29,000,000,000: A Detailed Look at the Fed's Bail-out by Funding Facility and Recipient."

Here's the shocker. The Fed's bail-out was not $1.2 trillion, $7.77 trillion, $16 trillion, or even $24 trillion. It was $29 trillion. "

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/l-randall-wray/bernankes-obfuscation-con_b_1147291.html


Is this fair?

[enlightenment]

4. Does anyone know where the other $4 billion

is going?
$26 billion total - *about* $5 billion = $21 billion
$21 billion - $17 billion = $4 billion

For that matter, where is the $3.5 billion of the *about* $5 billion going that is for 'direct cash penalties' going? Not to homeowners who suffered from foreclosure during this fiasco, apparently.

Oh, wait: Another article on this mentions that $3 billion is going to the states to help pay legal costs related to these issues.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/09/business/states-negotiate-25-billion-deal-for-homeowners.html
Odd that the states would benefit more from this than the people who were fraudulently thrown out of their homes.

Anyway - I digress. Getting back to the $4 billion that comes out of that rather simple math; anyone have any hints where that may end up?