With 1 in every 1,000 homes in the Garden State in some phase of the foreclosure process, Gov. Phil Murphy has signed a package of bills designed to assist homeowners facing the prospect of it happening to them.

The bills are also meant to paving the way for community revival in especially hard-hit areas like Atlantic City and Trenton.

During a visit to Atlantic City on Monday, Murphy said AC "remains the hardest hit metropolitan area of the entire country, while Trenton ranks as No.  2.”

Murphy said to stop the current crisis and help to turn things around the state is codifying into law the Judiciary’s loan mediation program, “which has been successful in helping 40% of the families that have sought its help resolve their cases through loan modification and other non foreclosure strategies.”

“We can never forget that the best way to attack our foreclosure crisis is to help families stay out of foreclosure," Murphy said.

He said in addition “we will require lenders to give families more notice about their rights in the foreclosure process, to help keep them in their homes.”

 

“Nothing we will do will cure our foreclosure crisis overnight, but these efforts along with our other efforts to work with families to keep them in their homes will help us move forward, and hopefully very soon move steadily down the rankings of nationwide foreclosures," Murphy said.

Many of the bills in the legislative package were recommended in a report issued in September 2018 by the Special Committee on Residential Foreclosures, which was created by New Jersey Chief Justice Stuart Rabner.

“Atlantic City or any other community in our state cannot ultimately succeed where vacant and foreclosed houses forlornly sit, or where families live in limbo," Murphy said. "We must give both families and homes a second chance, so both can contribute to their communities’ revival and long-term stability.”

You can contact reporter David Matthau at David.Matthau@townsquaremedia.com

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