Foreclosure by Nicole Bercume: Legislative History

• Legislative history refers to the progress of a bill through the legislative process and to the documents that are created during that process.

• Attorneys, judges, and others often turn to these documents to learn why Congress enacted a particular law or to aid in the interpretation of a law.

• Legislative history includes a variety of materials generated in the course of creating legislation, such as committee reports, analysis by legislative counsel, committee hearings, floor debates, and histories of actions taken.

• Legislative history is used for discovering sources of information about a legislature's intent in enacting a law.

Is Treasury using bailout funds to increase foreclosure prevention, as Congress intended? [electronic resource] : hearing before the Subcommittee on Domestic Policy of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, House of Representatives, One Hundred Tenth Congress, second session, November 14, 2008.

Call number: HRG-2007-CGR-0096

• Hearing before the Subcom on Domestic Policy to review Department of Treasury decision not to acquire troubled mortgage assets through the troubled asset relief program (TARP), under which the Department of Treasury was to purchase up to $700 billion of distressed assets from financial institutions to restore liquidity and stability to the financial system, and to examine proposals to prevent home mortgage foreclosures and stabilize the housing and mortgage markets through use of loan modifications and other methods.

• The  2012 Fair Foreclosure Act states that the public interest is served by moving foreclosure cases to final resolution expeditiously, in order to get real property back into the stream of commerce.

• The bill sought to reduce Florida’s mounting foreclosure backlog by allowing any lien-holder, not just the bank, to request a “show cause” hearing if the subject property has been abandoned. These hearings would require the homeowner to quickly prove why the foreclosure should not occur or face an immediate ruling from a judge. The bill also sought to reduce the amount of time a bank could pursue a deficiency judgment from five years as the law currently allows, to one year.

• However, predatory practices, fraud and accounting "mistakes"  rob people of their homes every day. Without the right to judicial review, the mortgage and foreclosure industries would be free to rob people of their homes more efficiently and faster, and those homeowners would have less recourse and might even have to fork over attorney's fees if they dare to fight the wrongful foreclosure.