Customer advocacy groups recently targeted Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase headquarters during annual shareholder board meetings to protest against mortgage lending discrimination and abusive foreclosure practices.
Protesters rallied in Tampa, Fla., as JPMorgan Chase shareholders were meeting at the bank’s headquarters to show their support for two resolutions jointly filed by several consumer advocacy groups earlier this year.
The resolutions demand full disclosure of the bank’s lobbying activity and spending and the separation of the role of board chairman from that of the CEO since as of now Jamie Dimon holds both positions.
“JPMorgan Chase spends millions and employs dozens of lobbyists to weaken critical financial reform legislation and regulation that would protect communities from lending and foreclosure abuses,” said Alexis Iwanisziw, research and policy analyst at NEDAP,an economic justice organization based in New York that supports the resolutions.
NEDAP joined representatives from Reinvestment Partners, a housing counseling and advocacy group based in Durham, N.C., and the California Reinvestment Coalition who participated in the protest.
Earlier in May representatives from these organizations from California, New York and North Carolina traveled to Bank of America’s headquarters in Charlotte to protest against B of A’s over allegations of continuous abusive and discriminatory mortgage lending and foreclosure practices.
According to CRC’s Alan Fisher, protesters aimed to inform B of A’s annual shareholder meeting attendees about a resolution filed by these organizations with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Protesters claimed the SEC upheld the resolution, which details “the harms the bank causes to communities throughout the country,” despite the bank’s formal petition to dismiss.
“Our shareholder resolution calls for an independent review of Bank of America’s mortgage servicing and foreclosure practices,” said Iwanisziw.
Our clients’ experiences show that because B of A has abandoned many properties in foreclosure, some communities, especially neighborhoods of color, have experienced “extensive community blight,” said executive director of Reinvestment Partners, Peter Skillern, which means “the bank is not in compliance with national mortgage servicing rules.”
Findings form a California Reinvestment Coalition survey of housing counselors in California said CRC’s associate director Kevin Stein, indicate JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America “continues to unfairly foreclose on families” and is failing to comply with the national mortgage settlement.
It showed that JPMorgan Chase still is failing to prevent so-called dual tracking practices when lenders discuss with borrowers loan modification options while proceeding with foreclosure filings, or is not notifying borrowers about missing or lost documents in a foreclosure file.
