from January-
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Over the past year, ProPublica has been exploring why the government’s program has helped so few homeowners. Over the coming weeks, we will be detailing how the administration quietly retreated from a plan to get tough on banks, why the mortgage servicing industry lacks incentives to invest in helping homeowners, how the industry succeeded in thwarting oversight, and what reforms could lead to more help for homeowners.
The stories are based on newly disclosed data, lobbying disclosures, dozens of interviews with insiders, members of Congress, and others. Today’s story looks at the timidity of Treasury’s oversight, a conclusion echoed in a government report Wednesday.
“At some point, Treasury needs to ask itself what value there is in a program under which not only participation, but also compliance with the rules, is voluntary,” says the new report <6>, from the special inspector general for the TARP. “Treasury needs to recognize the failings of and be willing to risk offending servicers. And if getting tough means risking servicer flight, so be it; the results could hardly be much worse.”
Govt’s Loan Mod Program Crippled by Lax Oversight and Deference to Banksby Paul Kiel and Olga Pierce
ProPublica, Jan. 27, 2011, 10:42 a.m
http://www.propublica.org/article/loan-mod-program-crippled-by-lax-oversight-and-deference-to-banks