Led by Vincent Howard, our Norco foreclosure defense attorneys have avidly watched the litigation by our neighboring states against Countrywide Financial. That company (through Bank of America, its successor in interest) settled in 2009 with states charges that it had engaged in consumer fraud in its mortgage lending. In particular, it faced accusations that it steered borrowers into loans it knew they couldn’t afford, and sometimes engaged in race-based “reverse redlining.” Perhaps not surprisingly, two of the states participating in that settlement were hard-sit southwestern neighbors of California’s, Nevada and Arizona. Arizona made a splash in late 2010 when it sued Countrywide again, alleging failure to keep to the terms of its settlement. Now, the Ninth U.S.

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An extensive discussion of tax reform is likely to take place over the next couple of years because it’s necessary and long overdue and because both political parties have things they hope to get out of it. Taken together, these suggest that something might actually happen.

Thats the premise of my new book, “The Benefit and the Burden: Tax Reform Why We Need It and What It Will Take” (published today by Simon & Schuster).

Like many inside-Washington policy debates, much of that involving tax reform is unintelligible except to those who understand the jargon, players, history and unstated assumptions that underlie it. For t

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Many borrowers are baffled when their loan application is declined by a lender. Most lenders will not provide a reason leaving the applicant with no clues as to where to look. If you have found yourself in this situation, there are things that you can do to clarify your situation.

1. Can you afford the loan you are applying for?

If you have just made an application for a car loan , a personal loan or a home loan, it may well be that your income is not sufficient in the eyes of the lender to qualify you for the loan. You can run your scenario through a how much can I borrow calculator online to see even approximately if your income is enough to qualify you for the loan;

2.

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When Eastman Kodak (NYSE: EK) goes into Chapter 11, which is all but certain, its patent portfolio will not be the only part of its business that will be affected. An auction of the patents may bring in billions of dollars, but that number has to be questioned. Why can a bankruptcy judge get more for the assets than Kodak can? The greatest change in Kodak’s structure, though, will be that some large parts of the company disappear entirely. What they produce has almost nothing to do with Kodak’s intellectual property.

Kodak’s Consumer Digital Imaging Group probably will be closed. Or its assets may be sold to another camera company, likely without most of the employees who work in the division. The operation makes video and still cameras. It also manufactures and markets ink jet printers. None of

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Last week, I argued that the super low mortgage rates could actually be contributing to strategic defaults.

The general idea being the low rates today make it even less desirable to hold a “high-rate” mortgage from the past.

The only positive from this assumption is that homeowners in this position may buy a new home and bail on the old one.

That’s a positive for them, minus the credit score hit, but a negative for the housing market and mortgage lenders .

And now it has occurred to me that the promise of low mortgage rates for the foreseeable future may have the unintended consequence of hurting home sales, at least in the near term.

You see, a new poll from mortgage financier Fannie Mae revealed that just 33 percent of consumers expect mortgage rates to rise in the next 12 months.

That figure is down from 45 percent a month ago, and is the lowest number Fannie has recorded since their monthly tracking began.

At first glance, it sounds like great news. Mortg

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