Procedures vs. Outcomes: Which Matters More In Foreclosure Process?

From a recent article in American Banker:

• Is it "just" a technicality if a mortgage servicer, foreclosing on a borrower who in all likelihood has defaulted, creates documents to prove the servicer’s client acquired the loan years ago?



• Consider this (admittedly imperfect) analogy: is it just a technicality if a criminal wasn’t read his rights before being arrested? If we know such a person is guilty, it fair to say that such a person was "not harmed" by the police officer’s procedural misstep? Is it worse to violate his constitutional rights or let him back out on the street?



• You can hear echoes of that age-old friction between due process and the messy, often infuriating results of honoring it, in reader reactions to American Banker’s recent story about servicers backdating paperwork to support foreclosures.

***

• The story won kudos throughout the blogosphere. Reuters’ Felix Salmon called it "a fantastic piece of reporting" and Columbia Journalism Review’s Ryan Chittum lauded the writing as "straightforward and tough."

For more, see 'Procedures Matter' in Foreclosure; Do Outcomes Matter More?