January 15th, 2009:

Current legislation, both Federal and Californian, encourages mortgage companies to modify or refinance home loans and avoid foreclosures.  But these programs are voluntary on the part of the loan companies, and they aren’t working.  Hence the abundance of foreclosures.

One of the nation’s largest home loan lenders, Countrywide Home Loans, has been testifying for months in front of Congress about how they are actively trying to work with home owners to restructure their loans and avoid foreclosure.  But, when pressed in a court of law, they admit that such simply isn’t true. Calling their testimony to Congress, “mere commercial puffery,” Countrywide representatives testified in New Hampshire recently that home owners simply shouldn’t rely on those promises to refinance.

The litigants in the lawsuit, a family of four, lost their home when the adjustable mortgage rate went up dramatically and Countrywide, in spite of months of promising to negotiate and modify the loan, simply wouldn’t do anything other than accept larger payments to “catch up.”

The new mortgage modification bill will end this kind of “negotiation” by allowing an independent bankruptcy judge to force a re-structure of this kind of loan.

President elect Obama is soliciting  input on issues important to the public for a Citizens Briefing Book. Here’s a direct way to urge active support by the White House for a change to bankruptcy laws to save homes.

Obama campaigned on support for judicially supervised home loan modification.  He appears to be waivering about including it in the first wave of bills to address our economic crisis.

If mortgage modification in bankruptcy would save your home, or that of your neighbor, follow the link above and tell the President elect.