The complaints about the success — or lack thereof — of the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) are getting louder.

By all accounts, the program is far less successful than government officials had hoped. Out of 1 million homeowners who received a temporary loan modification from their lenders, just 116,000 — or 11 percent — have received a permanent loan modification.

But the number of people who have received permanent loan modifications is probably only a small fraction of the entire number of people who either applied for a loan modification under the Obama plan or wanted to. The number is far short of the 4 million homeowners President Obama said would be helped when he announced the program.

Homeowners looking for permanent modifications are running into significant roadblocks, including:

• Homeowners who are current on their mortgage but are at risk of imminent default are being told by lenders that they can’t be helped unless they are 60 days late on their mortgage.
• Uneven training for customer service personnel means homeowners hear different stories every time they call their lender.
• Important documents are frequently lost. Homeowners report sending in documents over and over again.
• Three-month trial loan modification periods have stretched into 5, 6 or even 8 months.

• Homeowners told they have been approved for permanent loan modifications cannot get their lenders to send the paperwork.

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Suspicious activity reports filed in the third quarter of 2009 showed a 7.5 percent increase in possible mortgage loan fraud over a year earlier, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) reported on Thursday.

Forty-two percent of the reported activity took place in California and Florida, while the greater Miami, Los Angeles and New York areas topped the list of metropolitan locations.

The Bank Secrecy Act requires financial institutions to file suspicious activity reports, or SARs, with FinCEN when they identify or suspect fraudulent activity.

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The federal government on Monday sought to shut down the government-backed operations of Lend America, a large mortgage lender based on Long Island. The move prohibits the company from making new mortgages insured by the Federal Housing Administration or issuing mortgage-backed securities insured by Ginnie Mae.

FHA imposed $512,000 in penalties on the company for allegedly violating FHA requirements, including failing to document borrowers’ income and creditworthiness, and for submitting false certifications.

Lend America, owned by Ideal Mortgage Bankers, has 30 days to challenge the action. The company has previously fought an FHA suspension and is fighting Justice Department fraud charges in civil court.

“The Company is surprised and disappointed by today’s action by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Mortgagee Review Board,” Lend America said in a statement. “The Company is currently reviewing all possible options and remedies in response to this action, and will respond shortly once a decision has been reached.”

Found here.

The National Assembly has passed Bill for The Insurance Act, 2009 which among other things sets a time frame for insurance companies to settle customers` claims in 45 days only, instead of 90.

The new act that repeals The Insurance Act Cap 394, 1996 now bestows powers upon the Commissioner of Insurance to examine the circumstances under which the insurer fails to settle the customers’ claims before granting an extra 45 days to do so.

Presenting the Bill in Parliament on Friday evening in the House, Deputy Minster for Finance and Economic Affairs Omary Yusuf Mzee said the new legislation imposes a penalty of up to 5 m/- on insurers who fail to settle customers’ claims within the time frame set by the law.

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Before the subsidy kicked in, her premiums were about $450 a month, says her husband, Ken, 75, who is covered by Medicare.

Carol Horace, 57, of San Francisco hasn’t been as fortunate. Horace’s former employer, the Stanford Group, was put into receivership earlier this year after its founder, Allen Stanford, was charged with engaging in an $8 billion fraud. Stanford has denied the charges.

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Another wave of real estate defaults is rapidly gathering strength – this time in the office sector.

Owners of several small commercial buildings in San Francisco already are behind on payments, and local industry observers are laying odds on which large property could be the first to be seized by a lender.

Rising vacancies, falling rents and tight capital are likely to push U.S. commercial delinquency rates above 3.5 percent by the end of the year and as high as 6 percent in 2010, near the levels reached during the early 1990s, according to a forecast by Deutsche Bank.

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Editor: A certain Merced widow is a 74-year-old cancer survivor with a Social Security benefit of $1,197 per month. Her only medical coverage is Medicare, and she needs Medi-Cal to assist with her maintenance medications.

She is not eligible for Medi-Cal unless she spends $126.06 per month on private medical or dental insurance premiums. She cannot buy private medical insurance because of her age and health history, so she purchases three private dental policies. She cannot use the benefits from these policies, as she has dentures and requires no dental care.

The Medi-Cal workers, the insurance broker, and Hi-Cap are all aware of these requirements and call it an inequity in our system.

When there are such pressing issues with state revenues and a desire to cut the spending on Medi-Cal programs, why would there be regulations requiring our elderly citizens to purchase insurance they cannot use to qualify for benefits?

It appears to me this is another faulted law that was written to favor wealthy insurance companies and harm our elderly.

What is wrong with our system?

Found here.

Pat Argo has been in the real estate business in Titusville for more than 35 years. She has seen many ups and downs in the housing market, but this time she says it’s different.
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“There has never been the kind of fear there is today,” said Argo, a broker associate with Keller Williams Realty. “There has been a definite increase in calls, but people are worried about unemployment, damaged credit, bad mortgages and political issues.”

Argo and seven other Brevard real estate agents, mortgage brokers and representatives from the Space Coast Association of Realtors met with U.S. Rep. Suzanne Kosmas in Titusville to discuss the housing crisis.

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If you are about to renew your automobile insurance you may want to look closely at your next bill.

A new law goes into effect Jan. 1, that will require you to opt-out if you do not want extra coverage for medical care.

“It was in response to the huge crisis in trauma care and funding,” said Sen. Betty Boyd, D-Jefferson County.

The bill’s main sponsor, Sen. John Morse, D-El Paso County, told 7NEWS, “That after Colorado switched from ‘no fault’ insurance to ‘tort’, many medical providers were finding that they weren’t getting paid.”

“If they were,” he said, “sometimes it was years later.”

Right now, motorists have the option of purchasing extra medical coverage on their auto insurance.

Next month, that option turns 180 degrees.

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Every now and again ReverseResource.com receives email and/or comments.  The following comment was left in the contact us section.  My response follows:

I would like to state that we are very unhappy with the reverse mortgage that my parents took out from WSFS Bank in 1990. It is a shared appreciation loan that gets 82% of the value of the home. My mother is about to go into a home and the house value is around 2,000,000. My mother will not have the income from the reverse mortgage and needs the money for the nursing home. Not only is WSFS getting a ridiculous interest rate of 11.75% they are going to walk away with another $300,000 – $700,000. This is criminal and immoral to allow these kinds of contracts. Fannie May no longer honors these clauses in their contracts for that very reason. However, when I spoke with Bob Bell at WSFS about the contract he not only was rude but did not see anything wrong with this and no reason he should renegotiate the contract that my parents signed. My father not only was not in his right mind…he died of a brain tumor! It would appear to me to be predatory lending. What does your organization do to protect seniors against lenders with only their profits and self interest at heart and why do you support banks that rip off consumers equity in addition to the huge interest rates they charge? Do you have any recommendations for recourse? Thank you for your response.

Christine Carlton

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