California AG Appoints Professor as State’s Settlement Monitor

Katherine Porter, a professor at the University of California, Irvine School of Law was appointed as the California monitor to ensure compliance from the five largest servicers - Bank of America, JPMorgan, Wells Fargo, Citigroup, and Ally Financial - as stated in the $25 billion settlement, announced ""Attorney General Kamala Harris"":http://oag.ca.gov/.

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_Source: California Office of the Attorney General_

Upon federal court approval of the settlement, Porter will verify if the lenders are meeting their obligations to California homeowners. Using information obtained by former North Carolina Commissioner of Banks Joseph Smith, the national settlement monitor, Porter will review lender filings, homeowner reports, complaints, and other documents to see if benefits committed by the banks are met and result in relief.

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Porter will regularly report the results of her findings to the AG's office.

""Hundreds of thousands of California homeowners will benefit from the commitments of up to $18 billion extracted from mortgage lenders. We must enforce full and timely compliance with these commitments, and the appointment of Professor Porter as our California monitor is central to that enforcement,"" said Harris.

As a professor at the University of California, Porter specializes in commercial and consumer law, including mortgage foreclosures and bankruptcy. In 2007, Porter authored a study that offered some of the first systemic evidence of the problems in mortgage servicing that harmed homeowners. She has also worked with the Federal Trade Commission and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on issues relating to mortgage servicing.

""Part of repairing the damage of the mortgage crisis is restoring public confidence that our largest financial institutions will treat consumers fairly and follow the law,"" said Porter.

Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and JP Morgan Chase must meet a guarantee of a minimum of $12 billion in principal reductions and short sales for homeowners or they will receive financial penalties. Unlike the larger national agreement, which is only enforceable in a federal court in Washington, D.C., the agreement reached with California allows Harris to enforce the penalty provisions in California state court.