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From Washington State Attorney General Rob McKenna:

OLYMPIA – Mortgage scammers and others seeking to prey on homeowners had better watch their backs. Attorney General Rob McKenna and Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller are co-chairing a new State-Federal Task Force on Mortgage Enforcement which is an unprecedented partnership to target fraudsters.

The Task Force is dedicated to enforcing both fair business practices and civil rights. Additional members include representatives of the U.S. Department of Justice, Department of Treasury, Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Federal Trade Commission and the attorneys general of Arizona, Colorado, Illinois, Nevada, North Carolina, Massachusetts, Missouri and Ohio.

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We picked up the trail on this one back in October of ’07 – predicting a steady stream of activity from he state AGs.  In addition to Cali and Illinois, Maine, Iowa, New York, Massachusetts, and Texas – to name just a few more.  Add Florida to the list of California, Illinois, and Washington…

From the Orlando Sentinel:

Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum is going after maligned mortgage-lender Countrywide Financial Corp. for what he called a pattern of deceptive sales pitches to homeowners.

McCollum said Tuesday his office is following California, Illinois and Washington in suing the subprime lender for enticing homebuyers with larger mortgages than they could afford to boost the number of loans it could resell on the secondary mortgage market.

“We believe they have done harm to citizens of Florida by the way they have done business in our state,” McCollum told reporters in Tallahassee.

His office filed the suit late Monday in Broward County Circuit Court to beat Tuesday’s closing on the sale of Countrywide to Bank of America. McCollum said he wanted to be sure that Countrywide was the named plaintiff.

The suit alleges the company engaged in “unfair or deceptive marketing” by misrepresenting how long interest rates for subprime loans would remain fixed, incorrectly telling applicants they were receiving fixed-rate mortgages, and advertising low “teaser” rates without disclosing how much the rates would go up.

The suit also argues Countrywide broke its underwriting standards by not requiring applicants to prove their income and assets, and offering bonuses to “foster a culture of loan approvals.”

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From Newsday.com:

State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo announced an agreement with Wall Street’s three major credit rating agencies Thursday that would overhaul how they evaluate investments backed by risky mortgage debt.

Cuomo, flanked at a news conference in Manhattan by executives from Moody’s Investors Service, Fitch Ratings and Standard & Poor’s, said the new guidelines will have “a dramatic effect on the industry.”

An investigation was launched in February to determine how mortgage-backed securities, pools of home loans that are packaged together and sold as investments, collapsed during the subprime crisis despite high ratings.

The deal, which applies only to non-prime loans in the United States, is designed to end what the industry calls “ratings shopping” on mortgage-backed securities by altering how the agencies are paid.

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A follow up on something we brought you earlier this year.  From Legal News Line:

Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum is applauding Gov. Charlie Crist’s signing of a bill designed to prevent “foreclosure rescue” fraud that McCollum had proposed in January. Crist signed the bill on Wednesday.

The legislation, designated as HB 643 during the recently ended legislative session, was drafted in part by members of the AG’s Mortgage Fraud Task Force. It is designed to ensure that homeowners are properly informed about their rights before signing a contract with a foreclosure rescue organization.

McCollum proposed the bill in January after filing a lawsuit against South-Florida based National Foreclosure Management. The suit charged the company with defrauding at least 80 homeowners of about $1.7 million.

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Six out-of-state companies are being sued by Minnesota’s attorney general over claims they took advantage of people trying to keep their homes out of foreclosure.

A series of lawsuits that Attorney General Lori Swanson has filed in Hennepin County District Court say the firms violated a Minnesota law by asking for upfront fees for the mortgage advice. The cases allege they failed to deliver on their promises, too.

She says a 2004 law bars foreclosure consultants from charging consumers until after they have fully performed their duties.

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Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott has secured an order that requires Foreclosure Assistance Solutions Inc. to refund $370,000 to 338 homeowners.

The company, which offered a mortgage rescue service, sought out consumers who were behind on their mortgage payments.

They charged struggling homebuyers a $1,200 fee to negotiate with loan officers and lenders to help them from lapsing into foreclosure.

The state alleges that after consumers paid Foreclosure Assistance Solutions Inc. they were largely ignored by the company.

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Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan launched an investigation on March 6 to determine whether two U.S. mortgage lending giants violated fair lending and civil rights laws by steering large numbers of African Americans and Latinos to high cost home loans.

The investigation comes on the heels of a Web exclusive story of The Chicago Reporter, which first reported the trend after analyzing three years of data the banks reported last spring to the federal government.

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COLUMBUS (AP) — Ohio’s aggressive attorney general has sued mortgage lender Freddie Mac, accusing the lending giant of defrauding the state’s mammoth pension fund by systematically investing in sub-prime home loans.

Attorney General Marc Dann alleges that Freddie Mac, formally the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp., “secretly and intentionally participated in one of the largest housing investment deceptions in modern U.S. economic times.”

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We told ya – for those of you didn’t believe us – here’s another mortgage crisis story in what is becoming a growing list. Keep your eyeballs on two things between now and next fall – this issue and Election Day – they will mix – a lot.

AUSTIN — Homeowners struggling to make their monthly payments should take immediate action to prevent foreclosure, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott said today.”Ignoring the problem is the worst thing that a homeowner can do,” Abbott said.He urged Texans to call their mortgage lenders or a mortgage counselor at the first sign that they might be unable to afford their monthly payments.

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