BROCKTON - In the driveway of a foreclosed, single-family home on Noyes Avenue on Saturday, Gov. Deval Patrick and state and city officials signed a bill into law designed to keep Massachusetts homeowners in their homes longer and protect renters who live in properties under foreclosure.
Patrick said he and state officials chose the Brockton site for the signing of the bill, called “An Act Relative to Mortgage Foreclosures,” because the city has posted some of the highest rates of foreclosed properties statewide over the last three years – and it has also been one of the most resilient and reactive communities during the state’s housing crisis.
And the “guts and courage” exhibited by grassroots advocacy groups is what brings these types of issues to the tables of state legislators, he said.
“You don’t have to be a big shot on Beacon Hill anymore to move your agenda forward,” Patrick said.
The Brockton Interfaith Community, Patrick said, is a prime example of that.
BIC organizer Diluvina Vazquez-Allard, a 29-year resident of Brockton, spoke alongside state and city officials including Patrick, Attorney General Martha Coakley and Mayor Linda Balzotti on Saturday afternoon.
“I am very proud that the common person got together with other common people and achieved something,” Vazquez-Allard said.
Brian Moriarity, who attended the ceremony, is the director of Brockton’s branch of Neighborhood Housing Services, a federally funded program that has provided counseling to local families dealing with foreclosures since January 2008.
“It’s been challenging, but today is so rewarding,” Moriarity said.
The legislation will protect renters from being evicted just because their landlord defaults on the home they’re renting. The bill also encourages banks to negotiate a loan modification by making banks wait five months – instead of 90 days – before foreclosing if a modification can’t be reached. This will pressure banks to think about having face-to-face conversations with homeowners before a foreclosure, Patrick said.
But Jon Skarin, director of federal policy at the Massachusetts Bankers Association, said the bill offers few specifics for banks on how to comply with the law.
The bill extends the existing 90-day right-to-cure period another 60 days. But it doesn’t indicate whether homes already in the foreclosure process will be subject to the extension.
“People are trying to get their hands around it. They are trying to figure out how to comply with it in a very, very short period of time,” Skarin said.
The existing 90-day right-to-cure period often doesn’t begin until a homeowner is two to three months late on their mortgage payments, Skarin said.
And Annmarie Hewitt, director of loan operations at Rockland Trust Co., said the extension will have little immediate effect on banks.
While some people may need an additional two months to be able to prevent a foreclosure, Hewitt said generally, Rockland Trust doesn’t foreclose that quickly.
“We have folks that may be several months behind and we don’t foreclose on those people,” Hewitt said. “Foreclosures take a long period of time for a lot of reasons.”
Amanda Reed may be reached at areed@enterprisenews.com. Material from Gatehouse News Service was used in this story
