Nonprofit Organizations Begin Receiving Funds under Bank of America Mortgage Settlement
BOSTON, Feb. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Eric D. Green, independent Monitor of Bank of America's August 20, 2014, mortgage settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice and six states, today announced that he has made the first of a $490-million series of distributions, as mandated under the settlement, to nonprofit organizations that provide housing counseling, neighborhood stabilization, foreclosure prevention, community redevelopment assistance and similar services.
The first recipient, NeighborWorks America, based in Washington, D.C., received $122.54 million. NeighborWorks is a national, congressionally-chartered nonprofit organization that provides training and support for community-based redevelopment programs through a network of more than 240 local agencies in the United States and Puerto Rico.
The other recipients, who will begin receiving distributions in the near future, are legal-assistance organizations affiliated with statewide bar associations and are generally known as IOLTAs, for Interest on Lawyers' Trust Accounts.
The pending distributions were triggered in December by President Obama's signing into law an act extending federal tax relief through 2016 to homeowners who otherwise would have incurred income-tax liability from mortgage debt forgiveness they received under consumer-relief provisions of the settlement.
The distributions are from a fund established under the settlement to provide federal tax assistance to homeowners in case Congress failed to extend the tax-relief legislation. The $490.16 million that Bank of America paid to establish the fund was in addition to $7 billion worth of consumer relief required under the $16.65-billion settlement, which settled legal claims arising from mortgage-related activities by the bank and its subsidiaries. With the signing of the legislation, the tax-relief fund became surplus.
Under the terms of the settlement, Professor Green is required to distribute 25 percent of the surplus ($122.54 million) to NeighborWorks America and the remaining 75 percent ($367.62 million) to IOLTAs or other eligible state bar association affiliates.
Co-signatories to the settlement, besides the bank and the Department of Justice, were the Attorneys General of the States of California, Delaware, Illinois, Maryland and New York, and the Commonwealth of Kentucky.
Professor Green, a Boston-based professional mediator and retired Boston University law professor, was hired as independent Monitor to oversee the tax-relief fund and the bank's compliance with its ongoing consumer-relief obligations under the settlement.
More information about the settlement is available at the Monitor's website: http://bankofamerica.mortgagesettlementmonitor.com. The Monitor's mailing address is: Monitor of the Bank of America Mortgage Settlement, P.O. Box 10134, Dublin, OH 43017-3134, and the e-mail address is [email protected].
SOURCE Monitor Eric D. Green
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