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Frustrated homeowners turn to media, courts
Qualified homeowners are being routinely denied loan modifications through the Obama administration's Making Home Affordable plan, but they have little recourse to correct the mistaken denials, housing advocates say. In the absence of an effective appeals process, some borrowers have improvised their own solutions: They turn to journalists or congressmen–or take Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner to court.
According to the government's latest public figures, less than 12 percent, or roughly 360,000, of the borrowers projected to pass the program's initial eligibility test had received loan modifications by the end of August, about five months in. The process of reviewing those borrowers for final qualification has been "pretty haphazard," according to Geoff Walsh of the National Consumer Law Center.