Bankruptcy

Countrywide Sanctioned by Ohio Court Citing Porter & Twomey

By Bob Lawless

As many Credit Slips readers may be aware, Countrywide Home Loans (which is now part of Bank of America) has been the subject of proceedings in several bankruptcy courts because of the shoddy recordkeeping behind their claims in bankruptcy cases. Judge Marilyn Shea-Stonum of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Ohio recently sanctioned Countrywide for its conduct in these cases. Having previously found Countrywide to have committed sanctionable conduct, the question for Judge Shea-Stonum was the appropriate penalty.

The resulting opinion makes extensive reference to Credit Slips regular blogger Katie Porter and guest blogger Tara Twomey's excellent Mortgage Study that documented the extent to which bankruptcy claims by mortgage servicers were often erroneous and not supported by evidence. Specifically, the court adopted Porter's recommendation from a Texas Law Review article that mortgage servicers should disclose the amounts they are owed based on a standard form. Judge Shea-Stonum found that such a requirement would prevent future misconduct by Countrywide. All of Countrywide's claims now or hereafter pending in this court have to be supported by the form attached to the end of the opinion.

If you look at the form and wonder "Weren't mortgage servicers disclosing this information anyway?" The answer is that they often were not. Hence the need for such a form. Although the issue before the court was only what do to with Countrywide, we should move toward this sort of form as a requirement nationally for all mortgage servicers. (Hat-tip to Professor Marianne Culhane for pointing me toward this opinion.)

Full post as published by Credit Slips on August 12, 2009 (boomark / email).