Barney Frank: “I'll tell you what it's written to say. We believe that it is entirely a sense of Congress but understand the terrible…”

“I'll tell you what it's written to say. We believe that it is entirely a sense of Congress but understand the terrible harm that would come if it wasn't. Of course, the gentleman says it's not going to become law, so why he's so concerned about it, I don't know. But if it did, here is what it would do: This terrible section, here's what it does. It says that the borrower can't destroy the property. We are in danger of being too strong in insisting on protecting the lender. The language to which he objects--which he quite understandably didn't read--says ``the homeowner may not, with respect to any property, destroy, damage, or impair such property, allow it to deteriorate or commit waste.'' So it may be that we have unduly argued that the borrower pending this who's got a foreclosure shouldn't trash the property. I will plead guilty to perhaps erring on the side of ambiguity in imposing on the borrower an obligation not to trash the property.”