Georgia to receive more than $814 million from mortgage settlement

Georgia and 48 other states have entered into a $25 billion dollar settlement with five of the nation's largest mortgage service providers. The settlement is over foreclosure abuses that occurred after the housing bubble burst. Those abuses include an action known as robo-signing, where some employees of the mortgage service providers signed papers they hadn't read or used fake signatures to speed up foreclosures.

Georgia's estimated share of the settlement is more than $814 million dollars. Georgia Attorney General Sam Olens says the settlement with Bank of America, Wells Fargo, JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup, and Ally Financial is only a partial solution because other large lenders and mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are not included. However, he says the state joined the agreement because of its benefit to Georgians.

“It was our opinion that there was far more for our homeowners to gain than for us to initiate separate litigation.”