Connecticut homeowners have gotten far more relief from burdensome housing debt than expected from last year’s $25 billion national settlement with mortgage lenders, authorities say.
Attorney General George Jepsen said Thursday that since last March 1, 5,050 Connecticut borrowers have benefitted from $345.3 million in debt relief. In the fourth quarter alone, 2,175 Connecticut borrowers received nearly $160.3 million in debt relief, Jepsen said.
The $345.3 million represents the amount of debt that Connecticut borrowers will no longer have to pay back to their lenders, he said. The average benefit was approximately $68,500.
Jepsen said that puts the state’s distressed homeowners are on track to receive significantly more mortgage relief from the national mortgage foreclosure settlement than anticipated when the settlement was announced last year.
“This is very good news for distressed homeowners and I am pleased the loan servicers are making good on their promises to provide real relief and to help people stay in their homes,” Jepsen said in a statement. “While not everyone will qualify for help, the numbers in Connecticut show a very positive trend.”
Nationally, a half million borrowers have benefitted from some type of relief since last March, including more than 276,000 in the three months ended Dec. 31, 2012.
Connecticut borrowers had been estimated to receive $155 million in relief when the settlement was announced in February 2012 with the five largest mortgage servicing companies: Bank of America, CitiMortgage Inc., Ally Financial Inc., J.P. Morgan Chase Bank and Wells Fargo Bank; 49 states and the federal government.
Jepsen’s office was among states attorneys general who help negotiate the settlement that took effect last April.
