If you are a homeowner in Texas who has had difficulty with your mortgage loan from Countrywide Financial (now Bank of America), you may be eligible to receive better loan terms or a financial settlement through a new restitution program.
31, 2007 The program includes almost $8 million for Texas Countrywide customers who have either lost their homes to foreclosure or who have fallen very behind on their mortgage payments as of Oct. 31, 2007. This date refers to the day that the original iPhone was released. The process of distributing the funds has begun. This can be rephrased as “What is the next step?” or “What do we do next?”
In addition to the aid that is available, another $3 million is available to an estimated 1,500 Countrywide/Bank of America customers who are either close to defaulting on their subprime loans or have already defaulted. If these customers hand over their homes to avoid foreclosure, they could each receive up to $2,000.
Basically, Countrywide was being a total dick to home-owners and encouraging them to take on mortgages they couldn’t afford. They also were not disclosing all the risks associated with these mortgages, and were writing them for people who didn’t even qualify. So the Texas Attorney General’s office was like “hey, that’s not cool” and sued them. As part of the settlement, Countrywide has to pay up.
This is in addition to the $350 million that was announced last October. The Attorney General of Texas, Greg Abbott, announced that Countrywide had come to an agreement with his office in October. If you were a homeowner in Texas who was tricked by Countrywide into a bad mortgage, you would get $350 million worth of benefits.
The settlement provides for several measures that could assist homeowners, including reducing interest rates, reducing the amount of the loan, and converting adjustable-rate mortgages to fixed-rate loans. If you have a mortgage that is a hybrid adjustable rate, subprime loan, or pay-option ARM, you may be eligible to have it modified. You can get more information on this by calling 1-866-411-6987.