by Ryan McKeen
By all accounts, Connecticut’s foreclosure mediation program has been a success by helping to keep people in their homes. It has become a model program that was subsequently adopted by other states.
I was startled to read in last week’s CT Law Tribune that funding for the program may lapse come July.
This comes at a time when foreclosures and seriously delinquent home loans in Connecticut jumped more than a full percentage point in the last quarter of 2009. Connecticut’s foreclosure problems are presently getting worse.
As a law student, I worked with a lawyer who was fond of saying that “courts are society’s last line of defense”. I agree.
Keeping people in their homes, where possible, benefits Connecticut’s towns, families, banks, and property values. Sometimes there is no alternative to a foreclosure but there often is.
The foreclosure mediation program has been successful at forcing lenders and their attorneys to engage in meaningful negotiations. Something that rarely happened before the implementation of the program. I can’t tell you how many people I’ve spoken with that used to say, “I could never get such and such law firm on the phone”.
Failing to properly fund or to discontinue the foreclosure mediation program will come at a significant cost to our property values, economy, and system of justice.