Orange County homeowners seeking relief from bankruptcy judges to modify their mortgages for them and save them from foreclosure are holding their breath, as Congress debates who deserves to receive this kind of help from bankruptcy judges. Whether or not a bankruptcy attorney has another tool to help Orange County residents save their homes from foreclosure hinges on the outcome of this debate. Whether you own a home in Irvine or a condo on the beach in San Clemente, this legislation may affect you.
From Yahoo news:
“A dispute among House Democrats stalled legislation Thursday to let bankruptcy judges reduce the principal and interest rate on mortgages for debt-strapped homeowners.
The measure, backed by President Barack Obama, is the most controversial part of a broader housing package that had been expected to pass the House this week.
It hit a snag after a group of moderates expressed concerns in a closed-door meeting of House Democrats about how the bill would affect homeowners who are still struggling to make their mortgage payments.
The banking industry has lobbied hard against the measure, mounting a successful multimillion-dollar effort last year to kill it.
This year, mortgage industry players who are scrambling to narrow the scope of the measure to reduce its potential cost for banks have won some key concessions. House Democrats agreed to limit the measure to existing loans made before the bill is enacted and to borrowers who can show they tried other ways of modifying their home loans before resorting to bankruptcy, among other changes.
But banks want to go much further, restricting the bill only to subprime or other exotic loans.
Centrist House Democrats who have been working in tandem with the financial services industry to scale back the bill balked at supporting it on Thursday after a news report suggested that Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., the lead sponsor of the bankruptcy measure in the Senate, was willing to limit it only to subprime mortgages. The Senate is expected to take up the legislation within two weeks.”
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