Treasury to Rate Servicers on Loan Mods

Mortgage servicers participating in the Obama Administration's loan modification program will soon be ranked on their response times and other indicators of service quality. Treasury assistant secretary Herbert Allison told a Senate panel that servicers have placed homeowners into nearly 400,000 trial modifications. However, Treasury, like members of Congress, continues to receive complaints about servicers. "Homeowners are not receiving responses from banks as fast as they would like," he said. "To provide additional impetus for them to improve their service quality," Mr. Allison said Treasury would publish reports soon on the service quality of each bank. Meanwhile, Treasury and the servicers are working on streamlining the documentation that homeowners have to provide servicers to qualify for a modification. Mr. Allison noted that Treasury and other administration officials would be meeting the servicers in early October to discuss documentation and other efforts to improve the Home Affordable Modification Program. The Treasury official also told the Senate Banking Committee that the first public-private investment partnership transaction would close at the end of this month. Mr. Allison did not provide any specifics, except to say that it involves that sale of non-agency residential and commercial MBS.