Foreclosures Focus of Protests, Talks
Kai Ryssdal: There’s some movement in the scandal over botched foreclosure paperwork. The robosigning revelations of last fall from big banks like Bank of America and Wells Fargo. Attorneys general from all 50 states and federal officials are in talks with the biggest mortgage lenders. Regulators want to establish a code of conduct for mortgage lenders to ideally reduce the number of foreclosures. The enforcer would be a new cop on the beat, as our Washington bureau chief John Dimsdale explains. Karen Petrou: The CFPB right now lacks clear enforcement authority, first and foremost because it doesn’t have a confirmed director with express authority under law. So if the CFPB now seeks to exert its authority, that would at least be questioned. Under the state AGs’ proposal, bank lenders would have to give each borrower a single case manager to help guide them through foreclosure. And the banks would have to suspend the foreclosure process while documents are under review.
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