UTA has worked strenuously, with a coalition of other organizations to make California state Senator Don Perata’s legislation, SB 1137, more palatable.  UTA successfully excluded trustees from certain provisions of the bill.  “UTA worked hard with representatives of Senator Perata to make sure that the trustee role in the foreclosure process was accurately reflected in the bill, and that duties do not fall to trustees that more properly belong to others”, said Mike Belote, UTA lobbyist.  An editorial in the April 22nd Sacramento Bee is of interest, noting that “the lending industry no longer opposes the bill.”

Additionally, as lending groups and others noted their neutrality on the amended version of the legislation, Senator Perata, the Democratic leader of the state Senate, said that he is dropping his campaign to recall Republican state Senator Jeff Denham, after GOP leaders warned that the effort was a stumbling block to bipartisan negotiations on the state budget, the Los Angeles Times reported on May 8th.  Senator Denham had cast a vote against Senator Perata’s foreclosure bill last year. That legislation did not pass.

However, the Times noted that “Perata’s decision comes a week after Denham broke ranks with other Republicans and voted for a Perata bill providing steps to prevent homeowners from going into foreclosure.”  That legislation, SB 1137, passed the full state Senate by a vote of 28-10 but has not been considered yet in the Assembly.  A recent issue of the eNews provided the status and summary of that bill.