More Good News in California: Jerry Brown has completed the Homeowners Bill of Rights legislation. When passed, a total of six bills made up the legislation helping homeowners to keep their homes. He initially signed three into law, and yesterday signed the remaining three. For detailed info on how these can help you, contact either the Governor's office or the Attorney General's. As always, good luck.

A LITTLE HELP IF YOU'RE DISABLED & DEALING W/BANK OF AMERICA: If you're dealing with Bank of America and are disabled and using your disability funds for your loans, you may have had some issues with the way BofA works with this. Now, as a result of a lawsuit and subsequent settlement between BofA and the Justice Department, BofA has settled the DOJ suit without litigation. Accused of violating Fair Housing and Equal Credit Opportunity Acts, BofA was accused of requiring disabled mortgage loan applicants to get letters from their doctors documenting the borrowers' disability income amounts. In some cases the bank was accused of going beyond that by inquiring into the details of the borrowers' medical situations. In addition to paying a total of $125,000 to the three original litigants, the bank will also pay anywhere from $1-5,000 to every other loan applicant found to have been subjected to this process. They are also hiring a special third party administrator to review about 25,000 applications from people with SSDI benefits who may have been affected to help determine eligibility. If you're in this class of borrowers with BofA, good luck and hope this makes it a bit easier for you.

Foreclosure Agreement May Expand: You probably recall that a few months ago, the Attorneys General of 49 states reached a historic agreement with the five largest mortgage lending institutions (JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, and Ally Financial [formerly known as GMAC] to try to allay at least some of the damage caused by such actions as robosigning and other improper practices by the foreclosing institutions and their representatives. Well, the same attorneys general are pushing another four major mortgage lenders to agree to the terms of the agreement. While these lenders are not of the same magnitude as the original five, they still do have a sizable portfolio of mortgages and related foreclosures/defaulted properties. The lenders in this latest action are reported to be: US Bancorp; PNC Financial Services Group; Sun Trust Banks and HSBC Holdings. The reported negotiations with the newest four lenders are unconfirmed as talks are 'private'. However, it's a reasonable bet that the identities are correct as the names wouldn't likely be reported if someone close to the negotiations hadn't leaked some info on them. What to do if you're mortgaged with any of these lenders or have lost your home to one of them. Pay close attention to the news for more info and check regularly with your state attorney general for any additional confirmation or info. As always, Good Luck.