Foreclosures slow

“There’s a reason banks aren’t foreclosing. I just haven’t figured it out yet.”

That was Nevada Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto to Las Vegas Review-Journal reporter Hubble Smith last week.

Nevada has dropped from its usual first-in-the-nation foreclosure rate to third place, and there have been claims that the slowdown in foreclosures was caused by Assembly Bill No. 284, which was passed by the 2011 Nevada Legislature and supported by Cortez Masto. The bill supposedly prohibits “robo-signing,” in which mortgage agency employees sign large numbers of documents without reading them carefully and sometimes even without the documents being filled out.

Cortez Masto sought the new law after indictments were brought against workers engaged in the practice in Nevada, and a lawsuit was filed against a firm that used the technique.

The attorney general questioned whether the slowdown in foreclosures was caused by the law. “I hear that because of AB 284, banks can’t foreclose,” she said. “How is it that 284 is preventing a bank from foreclosing on someone not making their payment?”