Model State Nevada to Help Homeowners through Foreclosure Mediation Program

Deputy Director of the mediation program in Nevada, Verise Campbell, is very excited and pleased to announce that she has finally managed to negotiate with lenders, which will help her assist struggling Nevada homeowners to fight foreclosure. However, she received an angry reply from an agitated official of a lender at first which shocked her.

She still recalls the angry reaction of the representative who stated, “There will be no mediation! There will be no mediation! There will be no mediation!” She added, “And then he took the phone, and he struck something hard three times.”

In 2009, when the economic crisis was taking shape across the world, Nevada initiated this mediation program to control the wave of foreclosure in the state. After the housing bubble burst in the country, Nevada turned out to be one of the worst hit foreclosure areas in the nation with a huge number of homeowners losing their properties.

At that time, Nevada was the only state in the country to start a foreclosure prevention program. This program influenced the process of handling foreclosures in this state. However, many critics criticized this mediation program as a way of postponing the process of foreclosure while allowing delinquent homeowners to stay in their foreclosed properties for some more time.

However, as time passed the same critics realized the significance of having a mediation program when 20 more states in the country implemented the same mediation program, following Nevada’s example. Many advocates of the program now consider Nevada as a model state for tackling the foreclosure problem as they have.

The foreclosure mediation program works with the lender, the homeowner and a neutral third party who will mediate the foreclosure matter to find a way to save the home from foreclosure.

Vice President at RealtyTrac, Darren Blomquist stated, “Of all the legislation that I’ve seen pass, it seems to be the most effective in actually reducing foreclosures for a longer period of time.”

Although the real estate market in the US is seeing signs of recovery after many years of the housing bust, there is still a long way to go to end the foreclosure crisis in this country. According to the data provided by CoreLogic, there were nearly 1.4 million homeowners in May 2012 who were struggling with foreclosures.

At the beginning of this year, there were 1.6 million delinquent homeowners in the country. According to some housing experts, the realty market will recover at a faster rate once these pending foreclosure cases are completed.

Photo by Renjith Krishnan.