Attorney General Bill McCollum said he is making progress in
helping people in troubled mortgages, but acknowledges the state can't
force the national banks to lower the rates because it has no
regulatory authority.
He met with Bank of America executives
Wednesday who assured him that they would put staff in Florida in
January to meet with people to modify their home loans, instead of
forcing homeowners to call a toll-free phone number.
"They are at
least going to come in and make some effort to have some
person-to-person, face-to-face contact and it's something I think is
critical to do," McCollum said this morning before entering the
Clemency Board hearing. "I think it's outrageous that banks have not
provided this."
It's no coincidence that McCollum is highlighting
his meeting with Bank of America — the company of his gubernatorial
rival CFO Alex Sink — even though he has asked all major bank
presidents to meet with him. But McCollum denied politics had anything
to do with it. "There is no politics to this at all," he said, noting
that BofA assumed Countrywide, the company with the largest number of
trouble mortgages in Florida.
McCollum said state officials need to put pressure on Congress to push banks to help those with trouble mortgages.
– John Frank
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