Austin Scott: “this is an important and urgent and critical bill. All across this Nation, families are struggling and suffering. In my…”

“this is an important and urgent and critical bill. All across this Nation, families are struggling and suffering. In my own district of Georgia and in one of my major counties, which is Clayton County, which is one of the leading counties that has had over a 200 percent increase in foreclosures of homes, they have lost over $158 million in terms of their home equity. Now, Mr. Chairman, the speaker just spoke a moment ago about one of the major features of this bill, and that is trying to grapple with assigning liability. I want to just make sure that everybody understands what we are talking about, because we are going to have that debate. Just what is an assignee? An assignee is a mortgage broker or lender, any loan originator that makes these loans but they don't keep them. They repackage these loans. They often are loans that are delivered to the secondary market to a group of investors and these are parties that own an interest in the loan as it flows through the investment process, and they are known as assignees. Since these loan originators don't keep the loans they make, they often deliver what the secondary market will buy, with little regard for whether the homeowners can make their payments or afford these loans.”