WASHINGTON STATE

Washington State House Democrats

HOUSE DEMOCRATS

Rep. Sells’ e-memo for March 11

 

We are officially in the second-half of the 2011 session now that we have passed the House of origin cut-off I mentioned last week.  A lot of good bills, large and small, advanced from the House over to the Senate where they will be given another public hearing.  Here in the House, our committees are now considering bills that passed the Senate.  This process, though cumbersome, makes sure that you, the members of the public, have ample opportunity to offer your opinions, testimony, and input.

If you would like to read about the highlights of the session so far, you can find a brief press release here.

Throughout this whole session, our focus has remained on the budgets.  Next week we will get the latest revenue forecast and have a clearer picture of the challenge we’re facing

Giving victims of e-personation the tools to fight back!

On Feb. 26, the House of Representatives voted to put the law on the side of victims of harmful online impersonations (or “e-personation”) at social networking sites such as Facebook and bulletin boards such as Craigslist.

E-personators create web pages, personal ads, or other posts that pretend to be from the victim, often combining the victim’s name with photos or the names of friends and family members to make the deception more convincing.  This fast-growing problem has already caused horrific examples of humiliation and other harm that include cruel cases of cyber-bullying and fake solicitations of sex in the victim’s name that led to tragic and violent sexual assaults.

HB 1652 allows victims of e-personation who have suffered real personal or professional harm to pursue legal action against the imposters. The bill is narrowly written to protect citizens and also protect legitimate free speech rights, which is why it earned unanimous bipartisan support.

Protecting the family home

In just the past two years, more than 77,000 families lost their homes to foreclosure here in Washington. With those startling numbers in mind, we passed a pair of bills to help protect the family home.

The first is HB 1362 – the Foreclosure Fairness Act of 2011, which encourages banks and homeowners to work together and explore alternatives to foreclosure.

In 2009 the Legislature passed a “meet and confer” requirement in which lenders were supposed to offer to meet with homeowners before going forward with foreclosure, but some of the large national banks haven’t done it consistently.  Disregard for the law is what prompted this new system that will help homeowners stay in their home whenever possible. The Washington’s Foreclosure Fairness Act of 2011 will:

  • Make a stronger “meet and confer” requirement.
  • Fund more housing counselors to assist homeowners understand their options.
  • Create a foreclosure mediation requirement to discuss all alternatives.
  • Provide a consumer protection act remedy for institutions that fail to comply.

Perhaps you remember hearing about a lender in our state who managed to get away with scamming several people out of their homes.  Desperate homeowners on the brink of losing their homes got loans from him at exorbitant interest rates and signed paperwork stating that if they couldn’t pay up, the lender could take their houses. Just like that.

He did it by writing up his loans as “commercial” instead of residential. Mortgages have interest rate caps, consumer protections and full disclosure of all costs, while commercial loans do not. We passed a second bill that modifies the Consumer Loan Act so that lenders writing loans under the act for business, commercial, or agricultural purposes may not secure those loans with a lien on the borrower’s primary residence.

Victims of illegal lenders are often vulnerable and unaware of their rights. This measure also allows the Department of Financial Institutions to protect consumers who end up in the claws of these lending scammers.