On 7 July 2014, the Federal Reserve Board published a report regarding the Independent Foreclosure Review ("IFR") and the Payment Agreement. The Payment Agreement was a result of enforcement actions issued by the Federal Reserve Board and the OCC between April 2011 and April 2012. In that period, the OCC and the Federal Reserve Board issued enforcement actions against 16 mortgage loan servicers for deficient practices in mortgage loan servicing and foreclosure processing. As part of the enforcement actions, the servicers were required to hire independent consultants to conduct file reviews to determine if borrowers who suffered financial injury were eligible for financial remediation. To settle their obligations under the IFR, 15 mortgage servicers entered into the Payment Agreement with the OCC and the Federal Reserve Board. The Payment Agreement provided that the servicers would pay $3.9 billion in direct cash payments to borrowers and approximately $6.1 billion in foreclosure prevention assistance.
The report issued by the Federal Reserve Board contains information on the process of review of the foreclosure files as well as updated information on direct borrower payments and other assistance from the Payment Agreement.
The full text of the IFR report is available at: http://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/other-reports/files/independent-foreclosure-review-2014.pdf.
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