FBI Investigating Countrywide

News of an FBI investigation of Countrywide Financial Corporation for possible securities fraud related to the Sub-Prime Mortgage Meltdown. The FBI is being tight lipped about the details of the probe and on whom they are focused. Countrywide has been hit hard by the shady lending practices they were all to happy to perpetrate when the housing market was booming. These practices came back to bite them and now they may be facing bigger problems related to those practices.

What About Consumers

This speaks to a bigger issue. While Countrywide promoted themselves as a consumer friendly company when they were handing out sub-prime mortgages the reality is that these loans were designed too take advantage of the consumers they were supposed to be helping. They were looking at the bottom line and only the bottom line. Consumers be damned.

How does this relate to title insurance?

One issue is that Countrywide controlled the loan process. They pushed borrowers to their title company. That way they could extract even more money from their consumers. Not only were consumers getting into loans that were almost guaranteed to put them in the hole they were also being overcharged at closing because Countrywide sent them to their chosen title companies.

Shop for Title Insurance

That is why myClosingSPACE.com encourages all consumers to shop for title insurance and take control of the closing process. Title insurance companies can serve as an advocate for the consumer and help them make proper choices when it comes to real estate transactions. As more and more cases like this arise and proceed it may force regulators to make a change but until then it is important that consumers work with their own title company to help them navigate the closing process. We want consumers to find a title company they trust and avoid letting lenders push them to use a company that has been established to help the lender extract the maximum amount of money from the consumer. It's the largest purchase most people will make so it is imperative that consumers control the process with help from an advocate who knows the ins and outs of the transaction.