Issue Position: Foreclosures

Issue Position

Delegate Marshall introduced HB 1506 and HB 2473 in 2011 to help numerous constituents who had contacted him because of the difficulties they were having with the foreclosure process. Many of the problems folks were having were due to not having enough time to respond after banks contacted them to let them know their homes were being foreclosed on and the inability to determine who actually owned their mortgage because of the large number of mortgage loans that had been sold as securitizations. This was also due to the mortgage industries use of Mortgage Electronic Recordation System (MERS) to in theory record mortgage transfers instead of recording them at the local courthouse as has always been done previously. This not only makes tracking transfers nearly impossible when mistakes are made it keeps Virginia from collecting the recordation taxes and fees that should be paid when a mortgage is sold or transferred.

HB 1506 would have required that all mortgage transfers be recorded with the local courthouse and that a bank proceeding with a foreclosure give the citizen whose home is being foreclosed on 45 days notice rather than the incredibly short 15 days that is current law in Virginia. HB 2473 was virtually identical to HB 1506. Both bills were killed by subcommittees of the House Courts of Justice Committee and were sent to the Mortgage Foreclosure Task Force.

Delegate Marshall has testified several times in front of the Task Force since then and will continue to work to bring relief to Virginia families who have become victims of unscrupulous mortgage industry practices.

Source