Largest Village In New York Closes Chase Account To Protest Foreclosures [View All]

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Source: Huffington Post

The Village of Hempstead, a relatively low-income, minority-heavy municipality on Long Island, pulled its money out of JP Morgan Chase bank on Tuesday as part of a statewide campaign protesting the bank's dismal mortgage modification record.

"It's important that Chase and all the big corporate banks start to heed the minority communities," Hempstead Mayor Wayne Hall said in an interview. "There's a lot of power in the minority communities. If we all stick together and start withdrawing our money out of these big banks and start putting it into more favorable banks, Chase will review its procedures for modifications."

Nearly one in every four U.S. homeowners with mortgages -- or 10.8 million people -- currently owe more on their home than it's worth. In Hempstead, almost 4 percent of homes are in the foreclosure process, according to Dealbook, a rate four times Nassau County average. While data on Chase loans in Hempstead are hard to come by, in nearby New York City, only six percent of the 1,027 borrowers with Chase mortgages who asked for help in the past year were granted a permanent modification, according to a report released recently by the Center for New York City Neighborhoods. Moreover, a full 80 percent of these homeowners have not even received an offer for a loan modification.

Chase's national modification record is not much better. Of 233,653 trial modifications started by Chase under the Obama administration's Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) launched in 2009, the bank now has just 71,657 active permanent modifications, according to the latest data from the Treasury Department.

Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/05/largest-village-in-new-yo_n_845249.html

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