“If you have to put “Independent” in the title, then it probably isn’t.”

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Is the Independent Foreclosure Review really independent?

Is the “Independent Foreclosure Review” a real help to borrowers, or the latest program announced by the feds in a long series of faux efforts to make it appear the government is responding to the misinformation (we used to call them lies in grade school) and forgeries committed by servicers in their handling of foreclosures across the country?  You decide.

HAMP was predicted by all but the administration to be a total failure and it did not even meet those expectations.  HARP was equally worthless.  The latest change to HARP announced by Obama was just more lip stick on that pig.  (Nice story summarizing them both here.)  For all these programs borrowers have no rights and the servicers operate in a black box.  These programs of course were written by the financial services industry in lieu of giving borrowers anything meaningful like the cramdown right in Chapter 13s.  While the 50 state attorneys general still debate remedies, the feds swooped in with the consent orders with the familiar refrain — servicers promise to follow the law and continue to operate in a black box.  Borrowers have no rights, again.  It was not just me complaining — about everyone that was not bought off by the industry has a problem with the feds’ consent orders.  Story here.

Now the feds announce the new “Independent Foreclosure Review”. The amount of detail in the program reminds me of the one page bailout bill the last administration tried to get Congress to approve.  (It might be two pages depending, copy here.)  But we can garner a few opinions from what little is there.  See FAQ here.  First, it does not apply to anyone having trouble now or in the last year.  Seriously.  It is for people that either got foreclosed on and evicted over a year ago (like they still have all their proof and haven’t moved on with their lives), or it is for people that worked it all out with the servicer already but they are still hacked off and willing to mess with the servicer afterwards.  This time period requirement alone is beyond troubling.  The feds would hate it if they got in the way of servicers trying to actually foreclose wrongfully.

Check out the rest here…

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4closureFraud.org