Headline News Archive

2010

October

11

• Fight over who has legal right to foreclose makes mess worse. When Randy Persten's mortgage was foreclosed in 2008, he looked at the paperwork and found a mystery. A company he'd never heard of — called Mortgage Electronic

09

• Add-ons may be dissuading many from refinancing. With mortgage rates at unprecedented lows, why are more people not taking advantage of them to refinance or buy houses? The answers are complex and

• After foreclosure, a focus on title insurance. When home buyers and people refinancing their mortgages first see the itemized estimate for all the closing costs and fees, the largest number is often

07

• Foreclosure fraud? Ohio vs. GMAC may have ripple effect. Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray Wednesday filed a civil lawsuit against GMAC Mortgage and its parent, Ally Financial, alleging they used fraudulent affidavits and documents

• Foreclosure controversy: problems deeper than flawed paperwork. Millions of U.S. mortgages have been shuttled around the global financial system - sold and resold by firms - without the documents that traditionally

05

• A fee to pay your bill? Yep. The credit card reform law now prohibits lenders from charging a fee for paying your bill by phone, particularly if you use an automated system.

• Revisiting foreclosures aids homeowners but clogs market. On Florida's west coast, where the housing bust has flooded courts with foreclosure filings, the chief judge of the 6th Judicial Circuit has little sympathy

04

• Title insurer stops writing policies for some foreclosures. Old Republic National Title Insurance, among the nation's largest title insurance companies, will no longer write new policies for homes foreclosed upon by J.P.

03

• Reverse mortgage rules to change. Several big changes are coming to the Federal Housing Administration’s reverse mortgage program. Starting on Monday, the program will introduce a reverse mortgage product

02

• The right kind of disclosures for mortgage applicants. In this weekend’s Your Money column, I take a close look at an ING Direct mortgage promotion that turned up in the mailbox at

September

30

• New rules take aim at shady debt-settlement practices. Got debt? Well, if you do, the federal government has made it more difficult for unscrupulous or sham debt-settlement companies to make false claims that

• Chase to freeze foreclosures over flawed paperwork. J.P.Morgan Chase, one of the nation's leading banks, announced Wednesday that it will freeze foreclosures in about half the country because of flawed

28

• US home prices seen stabilizing without tax credit. Single-family home prices dipped in July, and are seen stabilizing near the lows without the homebuyer tax credit that ended in April, Standard & Poor’s

• Conn., Calif. join probe of Ally mortgages. Attorneys general in Connecticut and California ordered Ally Financial's GMAC mortgage unit to freeze all foreclosures within their borders, joining a growing list of states

• IRS to stop mailing paper forms, booklets. Electronic filing of tax returns has become so popular that the Internal Revenue Service will no longer automatically mail a paper form. "We're finding that

• Fannie Mae offers housing aid to military families. Mortgage giant Fannie Mae plans to give military families a break on their home loan payments if they are struggling because of the death or

27

• Raters ignored unsafe loans, panel told. As the mortgage market grew frothy in 2006 — leading to a housing bubble that nearly brought down the banking system two years later — ratings agencies charged

• Mistakes widespread on foreclosures, lawyers say. Paperwork mistakes that led one of the nation's largest mortgage servicers to halt foreclosure evictions in 23 states last week have happened elsewhere and affect tens

26

• New healthcare law: know your options. New healthcare rules that went into effect last week offer both opportunities and risks for consumers. With open-enrollment season looming, it may be time to

• Short sales are sweeping the country. A new wave of distressed home sales is rippling, more quietly this time, through American cities and suburbs. Its unsettling effects are playing out here

25

• Strategy of stiffing your 2nd lender likely to backfire. Are you delinquent on your first mortgage but still making monthly payments on your home-equity credit line or second mortgage? If so, a finance and

23

• No mortgage mods for many jobless. Unemployed homeowners cannot count jobless benefits as income when applying for mortgage modifications if they have loans backed by Fannie Mae. That could greatly limit

• Shortcuts and forgeries mar foreclosure process. The nation's overburdened foreclosure system is riddled with faked documents, forged signatures and lenders who take shortcuts reviewing borrower's files, according to court documents and

21

• FHA modifies loan standards. Recent changes on FHA loans and how they will affect borrowers and sellers: Upfront insurance premium What is it? A fee the Federal Housing Administration

• GMAC halts foreclosures in 23 states for review. GMAC Mortgage, one of the country’s largest and most troubled home lenders, said on Monday that it was imposing a moratorium on many of