Countrywide Home Loans, one of the nation's largest subprime lenders over the past several years, has agreed to a settlement to resolve allegations that the company collected a host of improper fees and payments from debtors filing Chapter 13 bankruptcy.
The settlement recipient was a Chapter 13 bankruptcy trustee named Ronda J. Winnecour, who sought the loan histories for 293 bankruptcy cases in which she suspected violations of the U.S. bankruptcy code by Countrywide.
Specifically, she alleged that Countrywide "lost" or "misplaced" payment checks made by debtors in foreclosure purposefully, in an attempt to skirt protections offered by the U.S. bankruptcy code.
Despite denials by the company that the errors made were "systematic," Countrywide will pay Winnecour $325,000 in the settlement.
Countrywide has a history of fabricating documents in foreclosures, as well as apparently "losing" them.
They're paying for their deceptive practices, though, with layoffs of 12,000 employees as the company starts to tank.
Tags: bankruptcy, chapter 13 bankruptcy, foreclosure
This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 29th, 2008 at 1:37 pm and is filed under Bankruptcy Filing Requirements, Bankruptcy News and Events, Bankruptcy and Predatory Lending. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
My husband just lost his job. We filed chapter 13 last June. Can our payments be suspended until he finds a job?