The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) announced that anyone who had their property foreclosed between 2009 and 2010 will be able to request an independent review of their foreclosure. This could affect 4.5 million mortgage borrowers whose properties were foreclosed during this time. If it is found that the homeowner received “financial injury” because of an error or other deficiencies, they may receive monetary compensation. The exact amount has not been determined yet, but this is a beacon of hope for people who feel that their mortgage was mishandled.

The announcement is in light of the “robo-signing” scandal that rocked the mortgage industry. When foreclosures became a normal part of the mortgage business, mortgage industry employees started relying on this practice to get through all the paperwork. It included lower level employees signing their own name with a fancy title, another person signing for an executive, an attorney hired to manage the process that may not have had the proper oversight, requirements being ignored, or the absence of notary policies. In all of these cases the mortgage documents are considered tainted because proper procedures were not taken to look over the documents. A signature is a sign that something is accurate. However, if someone qualified did not review the document, it could mean that something is inaccurate. That could cause a big problem for families. With so many different signatures it will be difficult to know who really handled a foreclosure case. For instance, “Linda Green” signed 1,300 documents, using 22 different signatures in Essex County, Massachusetts.