Tag: Katherine Porter

  • Fannie/Freddie to Homeowners: Do Nothing and Help Will Arrive

    Posted by

    Katie Porter

    Housing Wire is reporting that Federal Housing Finance Agency, the conservator of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, has launched a new loan modification program. The program is a major departure from HAMP and HARP (thankfully!). It puts mortgage servicers in charge of delivering relief, instead of requiring homeowners to run down, chase, and exhaust themselves contacting their mortgage company.

    The basic details available so far are that the program will start this July 1 and end August 2015. It will be open to Fannie/Freddie homeowners who are 90 days or more delinquent on their mortgages. Homeowners will not have to submit proof of financial hardship or undergo extensive underwriting to be qualified for modifications.

    This "Streamlined Modification Initiative" needs a better name, better branding, and at least so far, better publicity. But overall, I am very encouraged that FHFA is adopting this kind of program. It's what I call a "push program," requiring the servicers to deliver relief. We've seen at least two servicers roll out similar push programs as part of the National Mortgage Settlement. Bank of America sent letters to over 100,000 homeowners stating that if the borrower literally did nothing that their second mortgage would be forgiven and released, and the debt reported to credit bureaus paid in full. Guess what, 99% of homeowners who got this letter got the relief. Similarly, JPMorgan Chase rolled out a Settlement "refinance" program that was actually a simple, no-doc, interest rate reduction for the life of the loan. Their consumer response rate was multiples of other institutions that required full documentation for their Settlement refinance programs. Both programs are innovative and leverage the servicers' resources, while reducing the onus on everyday families.

    (more…)

  • BROKE: A New Book on Consumer Debt and Bankruptcy

    Posted by

    Katie Porter

    Just in time for New Year's resolutions on 1) reading more, 2) paring back your own debt, and 3) learning more about consumer bankruptcy to help you do your job (if you are a lawyer, judge, or academic, media, etc), the book, Broke: How Debt Bankrupts the Middle Class was released from Stanford University Press.

    BrokeThe book makes extensive use of the 2007 Consumer Bankruptcy Project data, providing statistics, analysis, and commentary on consumer bankruptcy and debt topics. I edited the volume, and chapter contributors are many Credit Slips regulars or guest bloggers–Jacob Hacker, Bob Lawless, Kevin Leicht, Angela Littwin, Deborah Thorne, and Elizabeth Warren–along with other top scholars.

    In the next few weeks, the chapter authors will blog here at Credit Slips about the research featured in the book, but to whet your appetite, I've included a table of contents for the book after the break. The book is accessible to lay readers but its scholarly focus provides plenty of data to educate and surprise even bankruptcy experts. Working on the book, I certainly learned a great deal about timely and important topics such as how pro se debtors (those without attorneys) fare in bankruptcy, where families go after they lose their homes to foreclosure, how bankruptcy affects couple's marriages, and the ways that bankrupt households differ in their financial straits from other households of concern such as those with low assets or late payments on debt. Of course I'm biased but I think the book provides the most comprehensive overview of the consumer bankruptcy system since the enactment of the 2005 bankruptcy amendments.

    (more…)

  • How to Find Me

    Posted by

    Katie Porter

    I've had a series of funny phone calls this week, in which the speaker expresses total shock that I answer the phone. While I am notorious for never answering my phone, the real cause of the callers' surprise is that the number where I answer is sometimes the third one they have called looking for me. Why? I just relocated to Irvine, California as I've joined the faculty of the UC Irvine School of Law, after a year-long visit at Harvard Law School and several years on the faculty at the University of Iowa College of Law. For those of you looking for detailed information, the bio link on the Credit Slips homepage will get you what you need.

    (more…)