Amid foreclosure questions, govt. loan mod program continues to struggle

Source ProPublica

The banks' flawed foreclosure practices should draw even more attention to their poor record in the handling of homeowners seeking mortgage modifications, government officials say. More evidence for that poor record came Monday, with the release of new data for the government's modification program, which aims to prevent foreclosures. We've updated our graphical rundown of the numbers broken down by each bank or mortgage servicer participating in the program. Take a look. While 496,000 homeowners have received a modification through the program, many more, 700,000, were initially accepted into the program on a trial basis only to be booted out later. As we showed last month, most have been disqualified despite making their trial payments. The recent revelations that servicers filed false affidavits in foreclosure court filings should make mortgage servicers think twice about denying modification applications, Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray told ProPublica. A group involving attorneys general from all 50 states launched an investigation of the filings earlier this month.