2009 House Bill 4455 ↩

House Roll Call 231: Passed

To adopt a compromise version of the bill reported by a House-Senate conference committee. This would mandate that before initiating “foreclosure by advertisement” proceedings, a mortgage lender must give a delinquent borrower 90 days to negotiate a revision of the loan terms. If the borrower's debt service exceeds 38 percent of his or her gross income, the lender would be prohibited from proceeding with the foreclosure by advertisement unless the lender agreed to a "cram-down" revision of the loan bringing the debt service down to that level. (If the institution holding the loan had accepted federal "bail-out" money the loan revision would be on terms dictated by federal regulations.) However, a lender unwilling to accept revision of the loan terms could still undertake judicial foreclosure proceedings, which are more costly and time consuming than foreclosure-by-advertisement.