CITIGROUP Agrees To Pay Freddie Mac $395 Million For Toxic Mortgages & Poor Loan Servicing

#Citi

"Citigroup To Pay Freddie Mac $395 Million To End Mortgage Claims"

Citigroup Inc. (C), the third-biggest U.S. bank, agreed to pay Freddie Mac $395 million to resolve repurchase claims on soured mortgages sold to the government-backed firm over more than a decade.

The accord covers about 3.7 million loans sold to Freddie Mac between 2000 and 2012, the New York-based company said yesterday in a statement. The payment was covered by repurchase reserves as of June 30, Citigroup said.

The biggest U.S. home lenders, including Bank of America Corp.and Citigroup, faced mounting pressure after the housing crisis to resolve claims on faulty mortgages sold to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the U.S.-owned firms that took a $187.5 billion bailout. Citigroup announced a deal in July to pay Fannie Mae $968 million for loans over a similar period.

The deal with Freddie Mac is “another important milestone in successfully resolving Citi’s remaining legacy mortgage issues,” Jane Fraser, chief executive officer of the firm’s CitiMortgage unit, said in the statement.

The accord doesn’t release the bank from liability tied to servicing the loans.

It excludes less than 1,000 loans from the period with “certain characteristics,” including those already in the process of being repurchased. Citigroup said it believes it’s also adequately reserved for those.

The biggest U.S. home lenders, including Bank of America Corp. and Citigroup Inc. faced...

The company had $719 million in reserves for buying back faulty mortgages at the end of the June, according to a July 15presentation.

The bank added $3.9 billion to its reserves since 2009 through June, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

U.S. Seizure

Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, its larger rival, bought about $2.2 trillion of mortgages from the 15 biggest banks and Ally Financial Inc.

(ALLY) between 2006 and 2009, according to Inside Mortgage Finance, a trade journal.

Regulators seized the two firms in 2008 after their purchases of risky loans pushed them to the brink of collapse.

Citigroup sold $62.4 billion of mortgages to Freddie Mac between 2005 and 2009, according to data from Washington-based Compass Point Research & Trading LLC.

The bank’s CEO, Michael Corbat, 53, named Fraser in May to run the mortgage operation.

She has sought to reduce staff and move beyond legacy issues.

Citigroup said earlier this week it’s cutting about 1,000 jobs in its home-lending business as refinancings slow.

The bank said earlier this month that it closed a Danville, Illinois, facility, leading to 120 job cuts, and fired some telephone sales agents.

Separately, the firm is hiring employees to originate new mortgages for home purchases as opposed to refinancings, a person familiar with the moves said this week.

Citigroup created $65 billion of mortgages last year, or about 3.4 percent of the total market, according to Inside Mortgage Finance, a trade publication.

#CITI

CITI MORTGAGE IGNORED OBAMA'S NATIONAL MORTGAGE SETTLEMENT BY PUSHING FAKE LOAN MODIFICATIONS TO STEAL HOMES!!

THAT'S HOW CITI'S PROFITS SOARED!!

In February 2012 Pres Obama signed a National Settlement Agreement w/ the CEOs of America's four largest Banks: BOFA, Chase, Citi & Wells Fargo.

Another MORTGAGE SETTLEMENT was signed in January of 2013.

Since then both BOFA & Citi have basically ignored the Terms of this Settlement.

Especially Citi Mortgage!

Yet Congress allowed Citi Mortgage to rake in huge PROFITS at the expense of Struggling Homeowners, many whom are now Homeless because Citi Mortgage Stole their Homes via FAKE Loan Modifications.

So How was this being done?

Five Different Ways: (FORT MILL, S.C. & O'FALLON, MO. LOCATIONS)

**1) Send Struggling Borrowers on a Wild Goose Paper Chase by asking them to send in the SAME Financial Docs over & over again.

**2) Hire Loss Mitigation Specialists, Poorly train them & Use their names to Foreclose on Millions of Properties.

**3) String Borrowers along on a Doc Chase until the Foreclosure Statue of Limitations in each State Expires.

**4) Grant only allow a Handful of Borrowers HAMP Certifications.

**5) Reward Managers & Loss Mitigation Specialists Huge Bonuses for helping to Steal Homes from Struggling Borrowers via FAKE Loan Modifications.



Sources: AP; Bloomberg; NJ.com; NY Times