The Attorney General announced the use of $57 million in mortgage settlement funds

The Attorney General announced the use of $57 million in mortgage settlement funds (Alberta Times) Arizona Attorney General Tom Horn held a press conference on Monday to disclose the state...

(Alberta Times)

Arizona Attorney General Tom Horn held a press conference on Monday to disclose how the state used $57 million in mortgage settlement funds. On February 9 this year, Arizona, 48 state governments, the federal government, and five large U.S. banks reached a $25 billion agreement, with the banks providing $17 billion, including $10 million in settlement payments from Bank of America, which will be used to reduce mortgage principal recovery, modify loans for debtors facing foreclosure, and $3 billion to help borrowers whose mortgage debts are higher than the value of their homes. This is known as the largest joint cooperation agreement between the state and federal governments in history, allowing approximately 750,000 homeowners whose homes were foreclosed from 2008 to 2011 to receive $2,000 in compensation each. Only Oklahoma did not participate. The agreement will also allow five banks including Bank of America Corp, Wells Fargo & Co, JPMorgan Chase & Co, Citigroup Inc and Ally Financial Inc to escape civil lawsuits filed by the government. The above banks have been sued over problematic foreclosure processes and mishandling of loan modification requests. Evidence emerged in late 2010 that banks were using "robo-signed" techniques to sign thousands of foreclosure documents without proper review. Arizona received $57 million from this settlement, and Attorney General Horn announced that $41 million would be used to help homeowners facing foreclosure keep their homes and refinance their loans. Other funds will be used for housing counseling, legal assistance and publicity to make more qualified borrowers aware of the settlement fund's use process.