Mortgage

Since Baltimore City Hall contended in a federal lawsuit last year that a group of international banks conspired to keep a key interest rate benchmark low, more municipalities and private companies have started to investigate potential losses because of the alleged scheme. Baltimore bankruptcy attorney Joel I. Sher is looking into whether banks' manipulation of Libor, the London interbank offered rate, caused a jumbo mortgage lender, Thornburg Mortgage Inc., to lose money though interest-rate swaps tied to the rate.

A Baltimore man pleaded guilty in federal court Friday to conspiracy to commit wire fraud because he and others secured mortgages for six homes in Upper Fells Point with fraudulent information, prosecutors announced. Kenneth Koehler, 42, and his co-conspirators caused losses of more than $1 million to mortgage lenders because all six homes they purchased subsequently went into foreclosure, according to a statement from the Maryland U.S. Attorney's Office. Four of the homes were on South Chapel Street, one home was in the 200 block of South Castle Street and another was in the 2200 block of Gough Street, according to Koehler's plea agreement.

An Owings Mills man has pleaded guilty to mortgage fraud after prosecutors alleged he took money from at least 48 homeowners to help them get loan modifications, then stole the monthly payments they thought were going to their lenders, the state said Thursday. Rodney Getlan, 45, could be sentenced to as many as 90 years in prison. The state is seeking a 40-year sentence with 10 years suspended, along with restitution of about $400,000 to the victims, the Maryland Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation said.

Just over 2,800 Marylanders have received some aid through the national mortgage-servicing settlement this year, with nearly 2,000 others in process, according to the settlement's monitor . The assistance, valued at $224 million, ranges from principal reduction to refinancing underwater borrowers. The average rate reduction for refinancing? More than 2 percent. Five mortgage servicers -- Wells Fargo, Bank of America , Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase and Ally Financial (the former GMAC)

Nearly 3,000 Maryland homeowners received almost $225 million in relief as of the end of June from the national settlement with five mortgage servicers, state officials announced Wednesday. The money was distributed to homeowners in the form of mortgage modifications and refinancing, principal reductions, deficiency waivers and short sale assistance, according to a statement from the office of Maryland Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler. Gansler's office cited financial data from the first progress report on the settlement, prepared by the Office of Mortgage Settlement Oversight.

The rate of new foreclosure filings in Maryland far exceeded any other state's this spring, a spike caused in large part by the national robo-signing legal settlement that unleashed a flood of new cases. Almost 20 in every 1,000 home loans in Maryland - twice the national average - were drawn into the foreclosure process during April, May and June, according to survey data released Thursday by the Washington-based Mortgage Bankers Association. "If you look at what's going on in foreclosure starts, Maryland now has exceeded Florida, has exceeded Georgia - some of the states that have been up there at the top in terms of the percent of loans on which foreclosure actions have started," said Jay Brinkmann, the trade group's chief economist.

The gulf between the American left and right continues to widen against a backdrop of high unemployment, weak growth and high octane cultural battles. I got to thinking about this growing divide in the aftermath of the Colorado movie theater shooting spree that left 12 dead, 58 injured, and a nation in shock. Once the gravity of the story began to sink in, my mind turned to an inconvenient (for some) thought: How many lives would have been saved if someone in that theater had access to a firearm of their own?

One in four Maryland borrowers owed more on his or her home than it was worth at the start of this year, according to CoreLogic's newest estimates -- a lot of people, but not quite as many as the company thinks were underwater last year. The real estate data firm put the tally at just over 335,000, down from 365,000 in the final three months of last year and the lowest figure since the summer of 2010. Maryland ranked 9th among states with the highest levels of negative equity.

Air Force Maj. Justice Sakyi's change-of-station orders to Germany came with a built-in dilemma: what to do about his family's home in Maryland. He and his wife, Olivia, bought the single-family house in Bowie in early 2006, near the height of the housing bubble. Then came the bust. Selling for what they owe is impossible. They can't rent the place out for nearly enough to cover the mortgage. And they haven't been able to negotiate a lower payment. "We believe in miracles still happening and so we are waiting for ours, to get rid of the house," Olivia Sakyi wrote in an email from Spangdahlem, Germany.

Maryland Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler is teaming up with St. Ambrose Housing Aid Center to give homeowners information about help tapping into available mortgage relief and preventing foreclosure. The workshop, one in a series, is scheduled for 10 a.m. Saturday at St. Matthew Catholic Church, 5401 Loch Raven Blvd. Individuals who borrowed home loans through the country's five largest mortgage lenders -- Ally/GMAC, Bank of America/Countrywide, Citi, JPMorgan Chase & Co./Washington Mutual or Wells Fargo/Wachovia -- may qualify for relief.