Foreclosure
Announced on November 12th, Citigroup Inc. said it will offer to modify terms on up to $20 billion in mortgages. The program will be extended to borrowers who are making their payments but are in danger of falling behind. It includes subprime borrowers as well as those with good credit who took out prime loans. The program is limited to customers whose mortgage payments equal more than 40 percent of their income.
A Massachusetts judge is blocking H&R Block from automatically foreclosing on up to 9,700 Bay State homeowners, ruling that the firm apparently wrote mortgages with “reckless disregard (for) the risk of foreclosure.”
Up until October 2004, my husband had steady employment as an aeronautical Engineer In early 2004 we refinanced with Beneficial Finance, a division of HSBC. Days after refinancing my husband was forced into early retirement. This also happened after hubby’s 401K plan through his employer lost 3/4 of its value. We lived carefully on a 401K plan that was on life support but in December 2007 we filed for a hardship case with Household Finance.
We receive reports for our consumer advocacy and watchdog website Household – HSBC Watch. What we are hearing form homeowners does not correspond with what we are seeing in the news. The discrepancy prompted us to investigate. What we found is disturbing. The news seems to speak to investors and the stock market. Articles that claim foreclosures are down are sometimes false. Help from HOPE NOW may be misleading. Here is what we found:
I saw a news report today about an earthquake in China that reportedly destroyed 258,000 homes. I am not making light of the earthquake, but I wondered about our own plight in the United States. Over one million homes are in foreclosure as of the end of June 2008, and the number is climbing every day. Foreclosure is a traumatic event. So was the earthquake in China. But if I had a choice I would opt for the sudden unexpected destruction, rather than the long drawn out stress of foreclosure.