Cummings Calls for Unredacted Copies of “Engagement Letters” Between Mortgage Servicing Companies and Private Consultants
Washington, DC (Nov. 22, 2011)—Ranking Member Elijah E. Cummings released the following statement today regarding the public release of highly redacted “engagement letters” between mortgage servicing companies and independent consultants they hired to review past foreclosure abuses:
“Although I am encouraged that some information is being made public today, our Committee should issue subpoenas to obtain full, unredacted copies of these documents so we can ensure that homeowners are being fully and appropriately compensated. Six months is too long to wait to conduct oversight of mortgage servicing companies that illegally foreclosed against homeowners.”
Today, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency released copies of the engagement letters with significant redactions, including the removal of sections regarding past work, actual and potential conflicts of interest, and the procedures available to homeowners to file claims and complaints due to errors, misrepresentations, or other deficiencies in a foreclosure process.
Cummings first asked for full copies of these engagement letters on May 31, 2011, following a report issued by federal regulators finding “critical weaknesses” and “widespread risk” with 14 of the nation’s largest mortgage servicing companies’ foreclosure practices.
The regulators ordered the mortgage servicing companies to hire private consultants to conduct more comprehensive reviews of their foreclosure actions, but the regulators allowed them to propose the terms of the reviews, including the methodology of the reviews, the criteria guiding the selection of cases to be reviewed, and any proposed sampling techniques. Some have criticized this approach for providing insufficient oversight of the banks’ actions.
In their responses to Cummings, the regulators explained that, by law, they cannot produce the full engagement letters until they are legally compelled to do so.
As a result, on October 27, Cummings wrote to Committee Chairman Darrell Issa requesting that he either issue subpoenas for the engagement letters or schedule a subpoena vote for the Committee’s business meeting on November 17, 2011. Issa declined to take either step, stating at the business meeting that he preferred to wait until Thanksgiving to determine whether the engagement letters would be released voluntarily.
SOURCE: http://democrats.oversight.house.gov
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The media keeps whining about the Super Congress not passing harsh austerity measures on the people?
That Super CONgress was UNCONSTITUTIONAL….
Obama clearly wants all of us to pay for all of the massive mortgage fraud debts.
Even though Obama said the American people are in this mess throught no fault of their own..I think that is called a traitor.
Great article: http://www.larouchepac.com/node/20442
Let me just ask one question? When does Cummings come up for re-election????? You think maybe he’s just trying to appease voters to think he’s a GOOD guy? They all put on masks right about election time…….
Its all a kabuki theater, as usual, they will never let the real massive fraud come to light, because the people will know that these institutions are zombies, casino gambling, producers of massive fraud, misleading and swindle, and a lot more…
Yeah right! More smoke and mirrors. They have no intention of REALLY getting discovery. I love the wording “misrepresentations”. Why can’t they just come out and say they broke the law? Because they are all in bed with each other thats why. These so called “oversight commities” will try to appease us with all this pretend concern. They know if they dig deep enough they’d find what we all are looking for. This will go on and on until we become complacent again out of sheer exhaustion. By then they will have already confiscated our homes and pillaged our bank acounts. Demand REAL investigations and put these people in jail already!! The jig is up!!!!