Consumer Law

Foreclosure Counseling Controversy

By Alan White

by Alan White

The National Foundation for Credit Counseling, which represents many of the established non-profit debt advice agencies, dispatched a strongly-worded letter on Wednesday to the HOPE NOW foreclosure prevention alliance. In it, NFCC protests the refusal of the HOPE NOW hotline to include NFCC counseling agencies on its referral list for the national foreclosure hotline (888 995 HOPE). The letter asserts that because so few agencies are connected to the hotline, homeowners calling the hotline are not being referred to counselors, but often simply told to call their lenders (i.e. servicers.) This is the hotline number that President Bush misread on TV in December. HOPE NOW is an alliance of mortgage servicers and industry trade groups working with four housing groups to reach out to homeowners.

NFCC has its own hotline, 866 557-2227, foreclosure help web site, and referral network of housing counselors. Hopefully these groups, who all share the same goals, can work out their differences.

Full post as published by CL&P Blog on February 08, 2008 (boomark / email).