Attorneys General Take Nation's Five Largest Banks to Task Over Foreclosure Crisis

Nick Bianchi, a research analyst with National People's Action (NPA), a network of community power organizations all over the country working to advance a national economic and racial justice agenda, said per the wjbc.com June 23^rd article, ''Madigan and other attorneys general meet with banks on foreclosure practices'', that the nation's five largest banks, which are Bank of America, Wells Fargo, JP Morgan Chase, Citibank and US Bank, are responsible for causing almost 60 percent of foreclosures.

According to the wjbc.com article, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan and North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper threatened to sue the companies if no satisfactory agreement could be reached.

Per the June 23^rd Bloomberg.com article, ''Banks Will Be Sued If Foreclosure Practices Talks Collapse, Two States Say'', Cooper was quoted as having told homeowner advocates at a meeting of state attorneys general in Chicago recently that: ''If we don't get an agreement, we're prepared to go to court.''

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Last year, the attorneys general from all 50 states began investigating banks' procedures. As a result, in March, state and federal officials proposed the banks give monetary relief to fund loan modifications, which would include principal reductions.

Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller is the leader for negotiations. He was quoted as saying in the bloomberg.com article: ''We don't want a settlement around the margins, around the edges. The settlement has to be fundamental, has to make some changes that are worth it, that are constructive.''

Madigan is unsatisfied with the $5 billion the banks have offered to pay. ''We're going to try to get as much as we can because there are billions and billions of dollars of harm they have done to our entire economy, to our communities and to individual families,'' she was quoted as saying in the bloomberg.com article. ''If that's what we have to do, that's what we'll do. We have the resources to do that,'' she added.

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Prior to the meeting in Chicago, concerned clergymen and citizens alike called for answers to the foreclosure crisis.

Reverend Booker Vance, who works on behalf of Grassroots Collaborative, a coalition of community and labor organizations working to further the interests of its constituents; its member organizations represent over 100,000 residents throughout Illinois, wants banks to be held accountable for deceitful practices such as ''robo signing''. He was quoted as saying in the bloomberg.com article: ''Banks have refused [to make changes to business practices] and continued with shoddy illegal and fraudulent service practices that are drowning our nation's housing market, and as a result the job market and the economy as well.''

According to the October 22, 2010 helium.com article, ''What is Robo-Signing?'', the term refers to the automatic generation of documents. ''...these documents refer to mortgage arrears and foreclosure notices, and the upshot is that many people may have effectively lost their homes or been threatened with the loss of their homes without their lender having even read the relevant foreclosure documents, and certainly without a notary being present.

The foreclosure crisis came to a head in 2010 in the United States, and continues to be an ongoing issue. It generally refers to the huge number of improper foreclosures initiated by large banks and other lenders.