Loan modification firms that promise to help struggling borrowers get their mortgages rewritten have been banned immediately from asking for cash upfront.
Attorneys, too, who specialize in loan modifications are no longer allowed to ask consumers for payment before they perform services. The ban expires on Jan. 1, 2013.
The abrupt change in California law comes after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger Sunday signed Senate Bill 94, by Sen. Ron Calderon, D-Montebello. As an urgency measure, the bill takes effect immediately.
Calderon, in an interview Monday, called the signing "a very big victory."
Schwarzenegger's action follows massive numbers of complaints to the state Department of Real Estate from consumers who said they paid up to $4,000 upfront to firms that often abandoned them.
Read the complete story at sacbee.com
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