RI Future: Foreclosure protection law set to expire July 1, a bill would keep it in place

Nearly 10,000 homes went into foreclosure during the mortgage crisis in Rhode Island. Then, in 2013, the General Assembly passed the Foreclosure Reduction Act, which mandated banks to work with homeowners before repossessing property. Since then, the law helped some 600 Rhode Islanders avoid losing their homes.

But the Foreclosure Reduction Act is set to expire in July, which would leave Rhode Island as one of only 15 states in the country that wouldn't require either a judicial or mediation process prior to a foreclosure. The other states are: New Hampshire, West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Missouri, Minnesota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Texas, Wyoming, Montana, and Arizona.

“Were the mediation statute to sunset,” Rhode Island Housing attorney Michael Zabin told the Senate Judiciary Committee in written testimony, “we would be back to the wild, wild West that existed before the statue.”

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Courtesy of RI Future