According to CNN and New York Times, Countrywide Financial, the nation’s leading mortgage lender, is facing a federal probe into its foreclosure practices. The U.S. Trustee, a part of the Justice Department, subpoenaed records to determine if two foreclosures in southern Florida represented abuses of the bankruptcy system by the lender.
The papers says that in the two cases being examined borrowers who had filed for bankruptcy court protections objected to Countrywide’s claims of what was owed on their home loans. One couple contended that their mortgage payments were current, while Countrywide claimed $2,400 in overdue mortgage payments in that case.
The paper reports that the U.S. Trustee took an interest in both matters after Countrywide did not respond to the borrowers’ objections and judges in the cases ordered the lenders’ claims for various fees stricken from the claims.
The reports mention that Countrywide is not the only mortgage lender being accused of adding improper charges to loans made to people who have filed for bankruptcy protection.
In one case, the court found that Wells Fargo, assessed improper fees and charges that added more than $24,000 to a loan, or 12 percent more than the court determined was actually owed.
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1 Bank of America to Buy Countrywide, Merrill Lynch Writes takes a $15B Writedown | Mortgage Foreclosure & Refinance Resource // Jan 11, 2008 at 5:16 pm
[...] Countrywide faces a barrage of borrower suits and investigations by federal and state agencies for alleged lending and loan-servicing abuses as well as shareholder suits stemming from its financial decline. [...]
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