Oversight of the four largest mortgage servicers' compliance with the national mortgage settlement is officially over, the watchdog supervising the process said Thursday.
Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo met all requirements of the settlement's servicing standards at the end of the third quarter, said Joseph A. Smith, the settlement's monitor.
"The settlement has improved the way these servicers treat distressed borrowers," Smith said in a press release.
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JPMorgan Chase has paid off $3.56 billion of the $4 billion it owes in consumer relief credit as part of a 2013 settlement over marred mortgage-backed securities issued before the crisis.
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Smith filed his final compliance reports Thursday with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia for the four banks, officially marking the sunset of rules for the $25 billion settlement. The servicers signed the settlement in March 2012 with federal regulators and 49 state attorneys general after the discovery of widespread "robo-signing" of foreclosure documents.
The final monitoring on Ocwen Financial and Ditech Financial, formerly Green Tree Servicing, will be filed later this year, Smith said. Those two servicers had taken over the assets of Residential Capital from Ally Financial, the fifth servicer that signed the 2012 settlement.
The servicers still remain accountable to servicing rules enforced by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
The banks initially paid $5 billion in fines, though Smith said they ultimately gave distressed borrowers $50 billion in debt forgiveness, loan modifications, short-sale assistance and refinancing.
