California, Nevada team up on mortgage fraud
California and Nevada, the two states hardest hit by the foreclosure crisis, are teaming up to jointly investigate mortgage industry misconduct and fraud that has harmed struggling homeowners.
The collaboration -- which will target the home loan process from origination to the selling of the loans as securities to investors -- was announced Tuesday in Los Angeles by Attorneys General Kamala Harris of California and Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada.
More than 650,000 homeowners in the two states lost homes to foreclosure last year, and more are failing to secure favorable loan terms through various programs designed to help them, Harris and Masto said.
"What we know is that these homeowners want accountability and they want consequences, and they deserve to have both," Harris said. The two states are "expanding and accelerating our investigations in ways we can maximize relief that can be brought to homeowners" who are in foreclosure or are trying to modify their loans, Harris added.