Carrington Mortgage Services and the Attorney General of Ohio have reached an agreement to work collaboratively to help struggling homeowners who are facing foreclosure.
The two sides have been involved in litigation since 2009, when former Attorney General Richard Cordray claimed the servicer was using unfair and deceptive loan modifications against eligible borrowers.
As part of the agreement, the servicer will provide a single point of contact for borrowers completing and submitting a loan modification package. The new program will also temporarily suspend any foreclosure activities that may be underway once a borrower completes a modification application while the loan is being evaluated.
The Santa-Ana, Calif.-based company also will implement a specific timeline for all loan modification requests and start an internal review process for any denied loan modifications.
“Combining the effort and resources of CMS and the state of Ohio to further the goal of assisting Ohio homeowners makes great sense,” said David Gordon, COO of Carrington Holding Co. “Instead of focusing our energies on litigation, we will be working together to continue what we have been accomplishing for our consumers all across the country: offering best-in-class servicing and providing a loan modification and loss mitigation process that is as simple and seamless as possible.”
The loan servicer has agreed to provide modification relief to 60 state homeowners that obtained loans from a lender that Carrington acquired in 2007. Before the compliance agreement occurred, the servicer initially entered into modifications with 31 of those homeowners. The rest of the homeowners will also now get their proper loan modification.
In other loan modification news, Brad Finkelstein from National Mortgage News reported that CitiMortgage claims that 65% of the attendees at the first four stops of its ‘Road to Recovery’ tour qualified for a loan modification program.
The company said that 95% of the attendees in the Baltimore, Orlando, Cleveland and Atlanta sessions were 60 days or more delinquent on their mortgage payments, with 50% already in the foreclosure process.
The remaining stops on this consumer-centric tour include Tuesday in Los Angeles; Thursday in Las Vegas; June 1 in Miami; June 7 in Detroit; June 10 in Phoenix; and June 14 at a location to-be-determined.
These sessions are open to all mortgagors who are having difficulty making their loan payments, including those who are not CitiMortgage customers.
Besides modifications, consumers can discuss other options to resolve their problems, such as short sales and deed-in-lieu transactions.
