Monitor: Morgan Stanley Completes Consumer-Relief Obligations under N.Y. Mortgage Settlement that Targeted Blight, Struggling Communities

BOSTON, Dec. 20, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Morgan Stanley has completed the consumer-relief obligations of its 2016 mortgage settlement agreement with the State of New York, receiving credit of $401,690,163 for assistance delivered primarily to struggling New York communities, Eric D. Green, independent Monitor of the agreement, announced today.

With its final credit submission on October 30, 2017, totaling $28,337,123, Morgan Stanley reached the $400 million worth of credited consumer relief required under the February 11, 2016, agreement, which settled claims that the bank had violated New York State law relating to residential mortgage-backed securities.

"My professionals and I have determined that Morgan Stanley's submissions and calculations for its consumer-relief credit are correct, and that it has complied with all the terms of the settlement agreement," Professor Green said in his sixth and final report on the bank's consumer-relief activities.

The $401,690,163 of credited relief provided by Morgan Stanley fell into the following categories:

• $205,012,079 in financing to support critical-need housing developments;
• $126,672,501 in donations to support community stabilization, either by financing the acquisition and remediation of non-performing loans or by making grants for certified community land banks or housing quality improvement and enforcement programs;
• $70,005,583 for forgiveness of first-lien and second-lien loan balances owed by individual homeowners.

"Unlike some other residential mortgage-backed securities settlements, this settlement agreement was conceived as a program to help individuals largely by focusing on blighted and struggling communities," Professor Green noted. "Morgan Stanley executed its consumer-relief obligations in a manner that achieved this objective. Grants and other funding to support community revitalization and affordable rental housing accounted for 83 percent of the total consumer-relief credit earned by Morgan Stanley."

Professor Green is a Boston-based professional mediator and a retired Boston University law professor. He was assisted in reviewing and validating the bank's claims by a team of financial and legal professionals. He said that the team's extensive testing "helped make sure that New York homeowners and communities really benefited from the relief Morgan Stanley provided."

Professor Green credited Morgan Stanley with "mov[ing] quickly in fulfilling its consumer-relief obligations, reaching and exceeding the $400-million credit minimum in well under two years."

The Monitor also praised New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman for the innovative structure of the settlement and for his office's collaboration with community housing agencies and nonprofit and governmental organizations across New York State. The report, available at: http://morganstanley.mortgagesettlementmonitor.com, includes comments from officials at several such organizations as well as photos of some of the relief work in progress. The website also provides further details about the settlement, plus contact information for Morgan Stanley, Attorney General Schneiderman's office, and agencies that provide legal or tax advice to consumers.

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SOURCE Monitor: Eric D. Green