House and Senate to Hold Hearings on Foreclosure Mess

The House Subcommittee on Housing and Community Opportunity has scheduled hearings for November 18 to investigate the allegations of robo-signings and other improprieties in the foreclosure process. The Senate Banking Committee is also scheduled to hold hearings on servicer foreclosure filing problems on November 16.

The chairwoman of the House Subcommittee on Housing and Community Opportunity is Maxine Waters, who criticized Bank of America and GMAC for lifting their foreclosure ban before the public has had an opportunity to look more closely at the problem. She believes the lenders cannot be left to police themselves—they have not shown that self-policing has worked.

Waters has also introduced legislation called the Foreclosure Prevention and Sound Mortgage Servicing Act which would prevent lenders from foreclosing on a homeowner without first offering loss mitigation.