Top Democrat wants law firm’s records on foreclosures

A top House Democrat is seeking records on foreclosures from a law firm that is under investigation in New York. 

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee ranking member Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) sent a letter Friday to the New York law firm of Steven J. Baum requesting records, documents and communications relating to “allegations of improper and potentially illegal actions in the processing of foreclosures.”

“Given that your firm represents some of the nation’s largest mortgage servicers, these revelations are disturbing,” Cummings wrote. “If true, they demonstrate a culture of disdain for families suffering foreclosure and a disregard for the rule of law.”

Cummings, who has been looking into the Obama administration’s housing policies with fellow Democratic Rep. Dennis Cardoza (Calif.), has been investigating allegations of the Baum firm’s misconduct since February.

His latest request follows a New York Times column showing photographs from a Halloween party in 2010 in which employees dressed as homeless people.  

A former employee said the photographs “showed an appalling lack of compassion toward the homeowners” and “are an accurate representation of the firm’s mind-set.”

According to the Times column, the firm is under investigation by the New York state attorney general, is a defendant in a class-action lawsuit claiming it “consistently failed to file certain papers that are necessary to allow for a state-mandated settlement conference that can lead to modification” and has been described by a New York Supreme Court judge as “operating in a parallel universe, unrelated to the real universe.”

On Feb. 25, Cummings launched an investigation of mortgage-servicer abuses that included a request to the inspector general of the Federal Housing Finance Agency to look into allegations against the Baum firm and others.