Banks Win Again - Bankruptcy Courts Not Able To Lower

Banks Win Again - Bankruptcy Courts Not Able To Lower Foreclosed Mortgage Balances

When it comes to bankruptcy reform, the only type that the politicians and bankers like is changes which make it more difficult, more time consuming, and less efficient for borrowers and homeowners. The point is to push foreclosure victims into a difficult bankruptcy, while the banks themselves get bailed out by these same taxpayers to avoid the same fate.

Over the past year of the housing crisis, with foreclosure rates remaining at historic highs, one of the proposals to fix the problem was allowing bankruptcy judges to reduce the amount that homeowners owed on a first mortgage. This would have made it easier for the borrowers to pay back part of the loan in the event the property value had fallen.

Of course, the fact that this solution makes some sense and is perfectly acceptable in the case of second homes and other types of debt and other types of bankruptcies (Chapter 11, for instance) did not change the banking industry's opposition to it. Although giant corporate-government bank Citigroup supported the bill, the Senate defeated legislation that would have allowed it.

Homeowners facing foreclosure, according to the politicians, should not be able to enter into a government bankruptcy court and have their mortgage balance reduced. Instead, they should be forced to enter into a government foreclosure relief program to have their mortgage balance reduced. The key difference is how much control the banks have over the reduction.

In most of the government programs to help homeowners qualify for mortgage modifications, the lenders participation in the plan is voluntary. And in practice, the lenders' participation has been lukewarm at best or nonexistent at worst. Take, for example, the FHA Hope for Homeowners program, which has been given $320,000,000,000 in taxpayer money and has helped one single homeowner.

Thus, the government modification programs have been a disaster because they allow banks to work as hard as they want to help borrowers. The banks, in turn, give homeowners bad deals or fail to negotiate in good faith with borrowers. Instead, they rely on their bailouts and other free money programs to prevent them from having any motivation to assist borrowers in stopping foreclosure.

The banks know that, if homeowners could file bankruptcy and get their mortgages modified, there would be fewer reasons to go to the government for free handouts. Borrowers would be able to file a Chapter 13, have the mortgage balance reduced to the market value of the home, and be able to make payments to the lenders again. This would be a tragedy for the lobbyists and mortgage companies!

One of the objections to the legislation was that it would make mortgages more expensive. But during the real estate boom, mortgages were as expensive as they ever have been. Although this was not in terms of interest rates, once the bubble inflated to astronomical levels, the amount of a loan a borrower needed to take out just to qualify for a mortgage was extraordinarily high.

The Federal Reserve had lowered interest rates to historic lows. Banks reduced lending standards knowing they could get bailed out by the government if anything went wrong. Loans were given to people who could never afford to pay them back, inflating the demand and rising prices even further. Some of these loans reset at high interest rates after a few years on extremely overvalued properties. None of this was a good deal.

And now, the main objection to allowing bankruptcy judges to reduce mortgage balances is that it would make it more expensive to take out a mortgage? How could it be any more expensive than taking out a loan for 250% of its actual value at a teaser rate that would reset to 12% interest in a couple of years? The banks could not make the mortgage market any more expensive if they tried.

Regardless, the banks worked hard to lobby politicians to defeat the legislation, and now the mortgage banking industry is celebrating its victory. But what have they won? Nothing more than ability to force homeowners to keep paying for properties that are overvalued, while the banks themselves line up to receive more and more taxpayer money in order to avoid the same fate of a difficult bankruptcy.