Foreclosure Rebate

by Doug Love

Trickling down from the $25 billion National Mortgage Foreclosure Settlement, a number of Californians are in line to receive payment from the State Attorney General’s office for faulty foreclosure tactics by banks. So far, according to Attorney General Kamala D. Harris, 432,584 eligible people in California have been sent claim forms to qualify for the payment.

The National Mortgage Settlement is the bargain made last year by banks facing lawsuits as a result of their bungled and illegal foreclosure proceedings. The banks agreed to pay $25 billion to the federal government to be distributed among states who participated in the negotiations for the settlement. Attorney General Harris, representing California, walked out of the settlement negotiations at one point, unsatisfied with the amount of payment earmarked for the Golden State. Harris stuck to her guns, reminding settlement negotiators that California was the hardest hit state in the foreclosure crisis, and therefore deserved more money from the offending banks. California wound up receiving 18 of the 25 billion dollars.

Eligible people to receive payment are people who were foreclosed on between January 1, 2008 and December 31, 2011, whose loans were serviced by Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo, or Ally/GMAC.

The amount of settlement for each eligible person in California is estimated to be approximately $847.00, not a lot of money in the big picture, but nothing to sneeze at, nevertheless. Payments are scheduled to be mailed mid-year 2013.

Packets were mailed out to eligible people from the California Department of Justice. The Attorney General understands that people may no longer live at the addresses to which the packets were sent, so a website and phone line have been set up for people who think they might be eligible.

The web address is www.nationalmortgagesettlement.com, and the phone number to call for a “settlement administrator” is 866-430-8358.

Attorney General Harris states, “Eligible people do not need to prove financial harm to receive a payment, nor do they give up their rights to pursue a lawsuit against their mortgage servicer or to participate in the ‘Independent Foreclosure Review Process’ being conducted by federal bank regulators. More information about that program is available at www.independentforeclosurereview.com.”

If you think you got it coming, go for it.