Within the current economic context, the mortgage industry continues to be an area of major concern – from participants in the sub-prime market to those concerned with how regulators are dealing with things now.
Home foreclosures and mortgages have been frequent news topics in the past year. The Obama administration has been working on plans to help with the housing crisis, including the ”Making Home Affordable” plan (also known as the “Homeowner Affordability and Stability Plan”). This plan attempts to keep homeowners in their houses by making it easier to refinance or modify mortgages.
While these are not formal in the way we usually think of governmental plans – there isn’t a statutory or regulatory proposal guiding them – there are several documents available that outline the goals of the Obama administration relating to Making Home Affordable. Similarly, there aren’t pending bills or newly proposed rules available in traditional sources, but some of these documents are available on Westlaw.
If you run the search “HOMEOWNER AFFORDABILITY AND STABILITY PLAN” or “MAKING HOME AFFORDABLE” in the FADMIN-ALL database on Westlaw, you will get several transcripts and “key facts” pages outlining the government’s agenda.
In addition, the Mortgage-Backed Securities volume of the Securities Practice Series was recently updated to include discussion of the sub-prime mortgage crisis. For example, to learn about Fannie Mae’s role in sub-prime mortgages, do a search of “fannie mae” /p sub-prime in the MORTSEC database.
Posted by Andrew Mushett in:
In Practice | Practice tips |
