Posts Tagged ‘Countrywide’
Attorney’s General and others are piling on as they focus on Countrywide in the subprime debacle. Countrywide was not the only lender involved. Some insiders at HSBC claim HSBC (HSBC Finance) was just as bad. There’s no question that Countrywide made billions in high-cost loans to risky borrowers that have ended up in foreclosure. But the economic calamity known as subprime lending has become a political drama as regulators, public officials and prosecutors sift through the rubble to determine how much of it was an unavoidable disaster, how much a lack of personal responsibility and how much involved underhanded and even criminal conduct.
The following lenders and mortgage servicers claim to be members of Hope Now: Acqura Loan Services, Assurant Inc., Aurora Loan Services, Avelo Mortgage LLC, Bank of America, Carrington Mortgage Services, Chase, Citigroup Inc., Countrywide Financial Corp., EMC Mortgage Corp., First Horizon Home Loans and First Tennessee Home Loans, GMAC ResCap, Home Loan Services Inc., HomEq Servicing, HSBC Finance, Indymac Bank, LandAmerica Financial Group Inc./LoanCare Servicing Center, Litton Loan Servicing, National City Mortgage Corp., Nationstar Mortgage LLC, Ocwen Loan Servicing LLC, Option One Mortgage Corp., Saxon Mortgage Services, SunTrust Mortgage Inc., Washington Mutual Inc., Wells Fargo & Co., and Wilshire Credit Corp.
Irony strikes again as opportunists are taking advantage of other opportunists. Squatters are taking possession of foreclosed homes. Invoking their rights as ‘tenants’ nobody is willing to come forth to dispute the fact, and banks (the other opportunists) as actually paying squatters to leave. The situation seems ironic to me. California has seen the problem more than other states, although Ohio sent some reports. Banks did not pay the original owners to leave. In fact, after some banks like Countrywide and HSBC added additional charges during bankruptcy they compounded the problem for homeowners. Of course many owners just gave up, without bankruptcy. I can imagine the response if the bank asked the former owner to verify that the current squatter is not a tenant.
A month ago, The Wall Street Journal reported that Clinton ally and former HUD Secretary Henry Cisneros grossed more than $5 million in stock sales and board compensation from Countrywide Financial, one of the nation’s largest subprime lenders. Mrs. Clinton’s campaign manager and longtime aide Maggie Williams made US$200,000 by working on the board of Delta Financial Corp., a subprime lender. The Williams headline was the first article to hit the news. Cisneros is simply a friend, or ally, but between the two articles people are beginning to wonder about CLinton’s sincerity.