STAND. COM. REP. NO. 694

 

Honolulu, Hawaii

                  

 

RE:    S.B. No. 1418

       S.D. 1

 

 

 

Honorable Colleen Hanabusa

President of the Senate

Twenty-Fourth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2007

State of Hawaii

 

Madam:

 

     Your Committee on Commerce, Consumer Protection, and Affordable Housing, to which was referred S.B. No. 1418 entitled:

 

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO THE PREVENTION OF MORTGAGE RESCUE FRAUD,"

 

begs leave to report as follows:

 

     The purpose of this measure is to require mortgage rescue consultants to provide homeowners with a written contract specifying the services they are entitled to under the contract and to notify homeowners of the right to cancel at any time before the services are fully performed.

 

     Your Committee received testimony in support of this measure from the Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs, Legal Aid Society of Hawaii, and one individual.

 

     Your Committee finds that mortgage rescue consultants often prey upon homeowners who are in arrears of their mortgage payments or going through foreclosure proceedings.  While mortgage rescue consultants offer help to distressed homeowners for a fee or some other type of consideration, the homeowners often get little or nothing in return and in the most egregious of cases, the homeowner loses the home to the mortgage rescue consultant. 

 

     The intent of this measure is to protect consumers from foreclosure scams by requiring mortgage rescue consultants to provide homeowners with a written contract specifying the services they are entitled to under the contract and to notify homeowners of the right to cancel any time before those services are fully performed.

 

     Your Committee has amended this measure to make technical, nonsubstantive changes for the purposes of clarity and style.

 

     As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Commerce, Consumer Protection, and Affordable Housing that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 1418, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 1418, S.D. 1, and be placed on the calendar for Third Reading.

 

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Commerce, Consumer Protection, and Affordable Housing,

 

 

 

____________________________

BRIAN T. TANIGUCHI, Chair