Tag Archives: Special Inspector General

Homeowners Lost in the Shuffle

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The Special Inspector General of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (SIGTARP) issued a report, Homeowners Can Get Lost in the Shuffle And Suffer Harm When Their Servicer Transfers Their Mortgage But Not the HAMP Application or Modification, that highlights some of the structural problems in the servicing industry. The report notes, for instance, that, “Homeowner calls to SIGTARP’s Hotline about difficulties experienced in HAMP as a result of mortgages being transferred from one servicer to another have persisted throughout the life of the program and have escalated in the last year.” (1) This is just the most recent reminder that servicing transfers continue to be a major source of trouble for homeowners.

SIGTARP concludes,

Given the scale of the reported problems related to transfers to new servicers, and the potentially serious harm to struggling homeowners who need relief from HAMP, Treasury must be aggressive and swift in sending the message to servicers that Treasury will not tolerate harm to homeowners in HAMP from servicing transfers. HAMP is five years old, and servicers have had ample time to understand the rules and to follow them. Treasury should no longer tolerate a failure to follow HAMP rules. Treasury should report on violations publicly, and permanently withhold incentive payments from servicers that do not comply with HAMP rules on transfers. (12)
The problems in the servicer industry are structural, but it is far from clear that there are sufficient structural changes in the works to deal with them. This sad state of affairs will last far into the future unless thoughtful solutions are designed and implemented in the present. So, while it is important that SIGTARP draws attention to this problem, it is more important for other regulators like the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Federal Housing Finance Agency to take up the cause and start implementing far-reaching solutions.

TARP’s Smallish Rogues Gallery

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The Office of the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (SIGTARP) issued its Quarterly Report to Congress on July 30, 2014. There is a lot to digest in this 500+ page document, but I thought that readers of this blog might be interested in the rogues gallery found at Figure 1.3 on pages 54-56 (note that this is the pagination found in the document, which is different from the pdf’s pagination of the document). Figure 1.3 lists the 85 people sentenced to prison as a result of a SIGTARP investigation, the sentences they received, and their affiliations:

Many of the criminal schemes uncovered by SIGTARP had been ongoing for years, and involved millions of dollars and complicated conspiracies with multiple co-conspirators. On average, as a result of SIGTARP investigations, criminals convicted of crimes related to TARP’s banking programs have been sentenced to serve 77 months in prison. Criminals convicted for mortgage modification fraud schemes or other mortgage fraud related investigations by SIGTARP were sentenced to serve an average of 39 months in prison. Criminals investigated by SIGTARP and convicted of investment schemes such as Ponzi schemes and sales of fake TARP-backed securities were sentenced to serve an average of 88 months in prison. (53-54)

Hard to tell if that is many or only a few people being held accountable. But it is interesting to note that restitution and forfeiture from crimes related to TARP have so far “resulted in more than $5.11 billion in court orders for the return of money to victims or the Government.” (59) That comes out to roughly $60 million for each of the 85 prisoners and about $800,000 for each of the 77 months each of them was sentenced (on average) to prison. While these metrics are merely impressionistic, they certainly make me wonder if this report is right to being touting SIGTARP as an agent of accountability so much.