Mortgage servicing violations perpetrated by Bank of America, Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase and Citibank (collectively known as the Big Banks) and other smaller mortgage servicers have prompted the federal Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) to issue formal enforcement actions against the violators. Each violating bank is required to sign a consent order promising to bring their foreclosure procedures into compliance with existing law.
Among the actions which are required of the violating Big Bank servicers are:
establishing compliance programs;
retaining independent firms to review foreclosure actions between January 1, 2009 and December 31, 2010;
ensuring correct communication with borrowers in foreclosure;
establishing procedures to deal with outsourced servicing providers, such as the Mortgage Electronic Registration System (MERS); and
retaining independent firms to conduct assessments of each servicer’s progress in complying with existing law.
Opponents in Congress point out these measures are merely a reiteration of tactics which did not work in the first place: namely, putting the servicers in charge of their own compliance…
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