By Tom Harvey
The Salt Lake Tribune
First published 4 hours ago
Updated 39 minutes ago
The Utah Attorney General’s Office is close to an agreement to halt what it considers illegal foreclosures by
Bank of America, which has conducted a majority of foreclosures against homeowners since the subprime-
fueled collapse of the housing bubble.
The Attorney General’s Office had intervened in a home-owner lawsuit to argue that BofA was illegally
foreclosing on properties in Utah. But recently it has been negotiating a settlement over foreclosures
conducted by ReconTrust, a unit of the giant banking corporation.
A.G. spokesman Paul Murphy said Wednesday an accord is near. Although he declined to provide details,
Murphy said in an email that “any settlement would require that all illegal activity [by ReconTrust] stop.”
Representatives for BofA declined comment.
Marco Fields, a homeowner advocate, said she wanted to see any agreement require at least a $10 million
payment from BofA that could go to homeowners who had been foreclosed on and to pay for counseling and
services to help those facing loss of their homes.
“The harm is unmeasurable, unrepairable,” she said. “When you take someone’s home illegally and you
displace them, you take away the foundation of their life.”
Fields said she expects to see 40,000 foreclosures in Utah this year. If that’s correct, that would cover 4.2
percent of the 953,000 homes that the Census Bureau says existed in Utah in 2009, the latest figures
available. From 60 percent to 80 percent of those foreclosures are conducted by ReconTrust, depending on
the county, according to Fields.
A settlement could force ReconTrust to restart thousands of pending foreclosures. A new state law also
makes the company vulnerable to legal action if it admits to acting illegally.
Salt Lake City's
Sugar House area
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BoA to Halt Utah Foreclosures