Posted by
Defend America on Thursday, March 25, 2010 9:36:38 PM
Obama administration to order lenders to cut mortgage payments for jobless
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, March 25, 2010; 6:01 PM
The Obama administration plans to overhaul how it's tackling the
foreclosure crisis, in part by requiring lenders to temporarily slash
or eliminate monthly mortgage payments for many borrowers who are
unemployed, senior officials said Thursday.
Banks and other lenders would have to reduce the payments to no more
than 31 percent of a borrower's income, which would typically be their
unemployment insurance, for up to six months. In some cases,
administration officials said, a lender could allow a borrower to make
no payments at all.
The new push, which the White House is scheduled to announce Friday,
takes direct aim at the major cause of the current wave of
foreclosures: the spike in unemployment. While the initial mortgage
crisis that erupted three years ago resulted from millions of risky
home loans that went bad, more recent defaults reflect the country's
economic downturn and the inability of jobless borrowers to keep
paying.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/25/AR2010032502426.html?wpisrc=nl_natlalert