Members of Congress are encountering roadblocks in their quest for documents about illegal foreclosure practices. Senator Elizabeth Warren and Representative Elijah E. Cummings asked the Fed and the Comptroller of the Currency to submit the documents to provide details of mortgage industry practices of illegal foreclosures, excessive fees and fraudulent affidavids in court. The Fed staff has refused to honor the request stating that the documents are ‘trade secrets” of the mortgage companies and releasing them would violate privacy rights. (Project on Government Oversight (POGO), May 3, 2013, by Meryl Grenadier and Angela Conterbury)
The Government Accountability Office (GOA) criticized regulators for hurting transparency by not communicating clearly with the borrowers facing illegal foreclosures. The banks interests are made paramount rather than those of the public writes Darrell Delamaide, of USA Today, May 16, 2013.
A GOA report said that when the federal government gave up a review of foreclosed homes in January, the regulators claimed that the process was too costly but a more likely reason is that the foreclosure reviews were unreliable. (The Huffington Post, April 3, 2013, by Ben Hallman and Eleazar David Melendez) -db