Foreclosuregate, We Hardly Knew Ye

Bank of America, which made headlines ten days ago when it suspended foreclosures in the 23 states that require court approval, says it has finished its review of pending evictions and will now continue foreclosing on 102,000 properties. From CNN:

The company said the first of the new affidavits will be submitted by Oct. 25, and that it will continue its review in 27 other states.

According to a spokeswoman for the bank, no errors were found during the review, and fewer than 30,000 foreclosure sales across all 50 states will be delayed as a result of the investigation.

State attorneys general have stepped up pressure on banks in recent weeks after it was revealed that some bank employees had signed foreclosure affidavits without verifying that the documents were accurate, a process known as "robo-signing."

That was quick. This is not the end of the fallout over robo-signing, which has modestly been described as "the biggest scandal in human history." But the paperwork crisis will subside, not because of any attorney general and probably without the legislative malfeasance John Carney predicts here. You can correct all the cases of robo-signing, subtract all the instances of outright fraud by lenders, and repeat the supposedly shocking fact that MERS has made securitization of loans easier. But when you borrow money, those greedy fatcats still expect you to pay it back. And there are plenty of people who still owe money.