Obama rejects foreclosure-friendly bill a day after Reuters flags its impact

The White House announced on Oct 7 that President Barack Obama would not sign a bill that could make it easier for mortgage lenders to foreclose on homeowners, a day after Reuters drew attention to the potentially huge impact of the little-noticed legislation, which had quietly zoomed through Congress. The Reuters story, which sparked a debate among policy experts and media watchers, gave a detailed account of how the bill had languished in Congress for years but suddenly got fast-tracked amid a rising furor over improper affidavits and other filings in foreclosure actions by large mortgage processors, such as GMAC, JPMorgan and Bank of America. The legislation, which was sitting on Obama’s desk for his signature, would have forced courts to recognize out-of-state notarizations, including those stamped en masse by computers in other states, a practice critics say has been used improperly to push through foreclosure orders. A day after the Reuters report, the White House said the bill needed further deliberation and that Obama would “pocket veto” the bill.