Sunday, January 29, 2012

HELP FOR FORMER HOMEOWNERS - INDEPENDENT FORECLOSURE REVIEW

IFR - THE QUIET SOLUTION TO MORTGAGE FORECLOSURE
Did you lose your home to between January 1, 2009 and December 31, 2010? Former homeowners may be entitled to restitution from their mortgage servicing company, if they apply for relief by April 30, 2012. What is a mortgage servicing company? The term refers to the folks who collected the mortgage payment, distributed escrow payments and sent out delinquency notices. For most Americans with single family home loans, the servicer was Bank of America, CitiBank, Wells Fargo or Chase. See list of additional companies below.
The Office of Comptroller of the Currency is currently requiring an independent review of those mortgages that went under during 2009 and 2010. This independent review is one of the very few programs that can pay restitution to borrowers who lost their homes.
If you were foreclosed in 2009 or 2010, watch your mail for notice of your eligibility for IFR, or Independent Foreclosure Review. If you doubt that the paper work was properly executed, or if you doubt that your servicer had the documents in the file to prove your debt, or if your foreclosure paperwork was robo-signed, you should contact your former mortgage servicing company and request IFR.
The list of participating mortgage servicing companies includes:
• America’s Servicing Co.
• Aurora Loan Services
• BAC Home Loans Servicing
• Bank of America
• Beneficial
• Chase
• Citibank
• CitiFinancial
• CitiMortgage
• Countrywide
• EMC
• EverBank/EverHome Mortgage Company
• Financial Freedom
• GMAC Mortgage
• HFC
• HSBC
• IndyMac Mortgage Services
• MetLife Bank
• National City Mortgage
• PNC Mortgage
• Sovereign Bank
• SunTrust Mortgage
• U.S. Bank
• Wachovia Mortgage
• Washington Mutual (WaMu)
• Wells Fargo Bank, N.A.
• Wilshire Credit Corporation
To learn more about IFR, visit http://independentforeclosurereview.com/faq.aspx#FAQ4 or call the Rainbow PUSH Coalition at 404 525 5663.
IFR is not a comprehensive remedy for mortgage foreclosure, but it is another piece of an intricate, complex puzzle of institutional responses that offers homeowners some relief.

Sunday, January 15, 2012

Thoughts on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

If Dr. King were here today, he would be both amazed and perplexed. Amazed at our technology. Amazed at the tolerance of interacial couples. Perplexed and dismayed at growing poverty and endless war. What would he think of the racial hostility that simmers just below the surface of public policy debates in the U.S.? What would he think of hyper-incarceration? What would he think of blacks who won't vote because they don't see real choices? Of course, we can't know exactly what he would think or do. Dr. King is the Founding Father of the New South. But, he did not complete the work. It is for us the living to continue the march toward freedom, justice and equality.