The most recent data, collected from state-chartered banks and credit unions, between April and June find that of nearly 87,000 loans to Maine homeowners, 177 were in the process of foreclosure. That's less than one every 500. Lloyd LaFountain, superintendent of Maine's Bureau of Financial Institutions, says the number is up, but he doesn't see it as a crisis. “Certainly, if you’re going through a foreclosure personally, it’s a great hardship and I don’t mean to make light of it. However, we’re finding that the numbers overall in Maine have not significantly grown although we are seeing that there is a slight increase from our last quarter report.” And LaFountain says the analysis of state chartered-banks and credit unions is not finding any examples of the kinds of predatory lending that contributed to the national mortgage crisis.

 

Though foreclosures are on the increase, Maine Credit Union League President John Murphy says they're especially low in his particular lending sector. “Our overall delinquency is only at 1.10 percent. So delinquency is still relatively low.” Murphy attributes that in large measure to the fact that people who use credit unions, also own them. “I think they try to meet the obligations. I think our underwriting has always been appropriate. We’ve never gone into the type of loans that are causing the problems in other parts of the country. So we’ve used appropriate standards right along and focused on meeting the needs of the members.”

 

The state survey does not tally the foreclosure rates of mortgage company loans since they are not state-chartered institutions. Even though he's not a lender, Chet Randall probably knows all too well the consequences of foreclosures. Randall, an attorney for Pine Tree Legal Assistance says the agency is seeing a consistent rise in the number of Maine homeowners facing foreclosures and bankruptcy filings. “We don’t have the resources now to meet that demand. We have a hard time and difficulty just trying to triage, to help those that we think can be helped and their home saved, or a substantial amount of the equity returned to them. But that certainly hasn’t translated into us being able to help everybody who is seeking our assistance.” Randall says that there's a certain kind of case that he's seeing more and more often. “And that’s the case in which a fixed household income, often somebody on a disability benefit or a pension has been sold an adjustable rate mortgage that has begun to adjust and has become very, very expensive. Often it’s a loan product that they should have never been sold given that they were not going to experience an increase in income given their disability or current retirement status. And those loan products have resulted in a lot of financial distress for many homeowners throughout Maine.”

 

Meanwhile Pine Tree and other homeowner advocacy groups are sponsoring a series of workshops to help those who fear the seizure of their homes by foreclosure. More information is available at Pine Tree's website at ptla.org.