Put your Readers Straight about Litton, Letter to the Editor, Financial Times by Larry B. Litton, Jr.

Financial Times - June 22, 2010 - By Larry B. Litton, Jr. 
© 2010 The Financial Times Limited. All rights reserved

Sir, Your articles about Litton Loan Servicing ("Subprime consumers hit at Goldman" and "US consumers rage against Goldman unit", June 16) distort the truth, omit key facts and create a misleading impression of the company.

Importantly, neither mentioned that Litton has modified or granted trial modifications for more than 100,000 loans in the past two years. That is almost one-third of our total mortgage portfolio.

Litton strives to ensure that our customers are treated with respect and receive a fair opportunity to restructure their payments to levels they can afford. Unfortunately, there are cases where we cannot help customers who do not have the financial capacity to maintain a mortgage, even with a modification. There are also occasions when customers request a loan modification even if they have the financial resources to be able to service their existing loan.

The stories mischaracterise Litton's modification performance. In an interview with the reporter, I explained that Litton is among a group of servicers that grant trial modifications relying on verbal income information from the customer, until recently a standard practice under the Home Affordable Modification Program. A second group of servicers grant modifications only after receiving customers' written income verification. Servicers in the first category, like Litton, have lower conversion rates to permanent modifications because of the frequency of inconsistencies between customers' verbal and written income representations. The articles failed to mention that Litton is among the top-performing servicers, in its group, in converting homeowners from trial modifications to permanent modifications.

The stories make no attempt to put Litton's activities in the context of the broader mortgage servicing industry. Your readers have been given a misleading and incomplete picture and, in the process, have been poorly served.

Larry B. Litton, Jr,
President and Chief Executive,
Litton Loan Servicing,
Houston, TX, US
 

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