At meetings of its Scope and Program and Executive Committees over the weekend in Charleston, South Carolina, the Uniform Laws Commission agreed to take on the difficult and critically important subject of the law of mortgage foreclosure. The Commission’s President, Michael Houghton, of Wilmington, Delaware, will appoint a drafting committee charged with developing a Uniform Residential Real Estate Mortgage Foreclosure Process and Protections Act. The new law would be intended to be new state law, operating to overlay existing state law on the subject, to address issues relating to the recent and ongoing mortgage foreclosure crisis.
More than 50 stakeholders, including representatives of banks, mortgage lenders, consumer groups, title insurers, the Federal Reserve System, and the Federal Housing Finance Agency, met with the ULC Mortgage Foreclosure Study Committee on January 13, 2012, to discuss the need and prospects of a new Uniform or Model law on the subject. Although there was by no means a unanimous view, the Study Committee felt the prospects for a successful statute were strong enough to justify a drafting effort.
Friday’s Scope and Program Committee session was my first in-person meeting as the Committee’s new Chair. The Committee took a serious look at the challenge any drafting committee will face: balancing the needs of mortgage lender for clear and expeditious foreclosure process, with that of borrows for a process that provides adequate consumer protections.
Without accepting the illusion that a drafting effort will necessarily succeed, our Scope Committee strongly recommended that Executive Committee authorize the project. On Saturday, and without a dissenting vote, the Executive Committee agreed to do so,.
President Houghton will shortly appoint the members of the Drafting Committee, together with stakeholder advisors and observers to the process. Uniform Law Commission drafting meetings are open to public and are announced in advance on the ULC web site at: http://www.nccusl.org/
Rich
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Good luck with this. I assembled a cast of “interested parties” 3.5 years ago to rework VT’s foreclosure laws. This year we are finally getting some face time with H.403 in House Judiciary. I am hopeful that after a long, arduous process we’ll come out with something to help VT’s practitioners but it has been an interesting struggle (from time to time) among the various stakeholders. I can only imagine how this scenario might play out on a more national stage with the interests and the egos at the table.
Andy
Andrew D. Mikell
State Manager/Title Counsel, Vermont Attorneys Title Corporation
Box 1101, Burlington, VT 05402 Ph: 800.649.3366 Local: 876.6800
“A Different Kind of Title Insurer” http://www.vermontattorneystitle.com
Thanks Andy,
You are right that it will be a big challenge. Could you keep me posted on your Vermont effort?
Rich