Keep Your Home California Debuts Servicer Scorecard

Keep Your Home California, a $2 billion federally funded program to help homeowners with their mortgage payments, launched an online Servicer Scorecard that allows distressed borrowers to monitor how their mortgage servicer is working with the state-run program to avoid foreclosure.

Each month, Keep Your Home California will assess the 140-plus servicers enrolled in the program and evaluate them on things like the percentage of applications approved and declined, how many days it takes to respond to applications, and the total fundings issued per program during that particular month.

Ratings are available for all types of financial institutions, ranging from the major servicers like Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and JPMorgan Chase, to midsize servicers such as Fay Servicing, RoundPoint Mortgage Servicing and WJ Bradley Mortgage Capital. Credit unions such as Patelco, San Diego County and SAFE Federal Credit Union also participate in the Servicer Scorecard program.  

Wells Fargo and Bank of America accounted for approximately 44% of the fundings issued through the program in August. Wells Fargo customers made up 1,870 transactions last month, the most in the program from one servicer, followed by B of A with 1,519.

However, Bank of America customers were issued $7.82 million in funding, about $3 million more than Wells Fargo. According to Keep Your Home California, the difference in funding was due to the fact that B of A had more customers qualify for the Principal Reduction Program, which has the largest benefit amount of the four programs available for state residents.

Besides the Principal Reduction Program, the other three options that homeowners can participate in if they have suffered a financial hardship to help them stay in their homes and maintain an affordable mortgage payment and not get foreclosed upon is the Unemployment Mortgage Assistance Program, the Mortgage Reinstatement Assistance Program and the Transition Assistance Program.

More than 140 mortgage servicers participate in at least one of the four programs available through Keep Your Home California, covering about 95% of the mortgages in the state.

Since February 2011 when the program began, Keep Your Home California has helped 30,000 households.

“We want to help homeowners determine how effective and responsive their mortgage servicer has been to the Keep Your Home California program,” said Claudia Cappio, executive director of the California Housing Finance Agency, which oversees Keep Your Home California. “The Servicer Scorecard clearly details how closely their mortgage servicer is working with the program to prevent foreclosures in the state.”

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