O'Malley unveils home aid

LANDOVER - Gov. Martin O'Malley announced a wide-ranging plan yesterday to confront an unprecedented rise in home foreclosures and combat predatory mortgage schemes, including legislation to slow the minimum time for foreclosure from 15 days to more than four months.The Democratic governor proposed new requirements for brokers and lenders to ensure that borrowers can afford the mortgages, changes to the state's foreclosure process to make it more consumer-friendly and a ban on the conveyance of property in so-called foreclosure rescue schemes.O'Malley's administration also wants Maryland to become the second state in the nation, after California, to require that loan servicing companies file monthly reports about how many loans are in default and to document their efforts to help borrowers by refinancing or modifying the loan terms. State officials said there is a gulf between what servicers say they are doing and the actual assistance they are providing."We have heard time and time again that no one wins in a foreclosure," O'Malley said. "Well, if that is the truth, then we need the information so that we can tell which loan servicers are actually working with homeowners to actually stave off foreclosure."O'Malley outlined his plan at a news conference on the front lawn of Velma Floyd, a Landover resident who almost lost her first home recently in a foreclosure rescue scheme, in which troubled homeowners refinance and are instructed to temporarily sign over the title of their homes. Floyd's broker is under investigation by state regulators and therefore wasn't named."We just want to keep our home, and we want to help others keep their homes," Floyd said.Tens of thousands of subprime mortgages are expected to go into foreclosure in Maryland over the next two years at a cost of $2.7 billion in lost property value and $19 million in property taxes, according to the Joint Economic Committee in Congress. About one-fifth of homeowners with subprime mortgages in the state were late on their payments or in the foreclosure process during the three months through October, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.