HOMEOWNERS...BANKS STILL MAKING MISTAKES

Mortgage servicers have been using questionable foreclosure procedures for nearly a half decade and twice this year, federal agencies busted mortgage servicers for robo-signing and other foreclosure shenanigans.

After reviewing 14 large mortgage servicers in the fourth quarter of 2010, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), Federal Reserve, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), and the Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS) found what regulators described a "pattern of misconduct and negligence related to deficient practices in residential mortgage loan servicing and foreclosure processing."

On June 30, federal regulators said banks that determine problems in their foreclosure processes must take "immediate" corrective action, and then gave them until September 30 to take "immediate" action, regarding:

• The practice of "dual tracking" simultaneously engaging a homeowner in a loan modification, while foreclosing on the property.

• Using robo-signing to finalize foreclosures.

• Losing and misplacing documents, not keeping records of contact with homeowners, and asking homeowners to repeatedly submit the same documents.

In an earlier April 2011 report "Interagency Review of Foreclosure Policies and Practices" regulators also found "unsafe and unsound practices and violations of applicable federal and state laws."