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PA Legal Aid Network e-News
Thursday, July 24, 2008
House Passes Amended Housing Assistance Bill
The National Legal Aid and Defender Association is reporting that on July 23, the House voted 272-152 to send the Housing and Economic Recovery Act (H.R. 3221) back to the Senate. The vote occurred on a substitute amendment, which represents the final negotiated version of the housing bill. Senate leaders are said to back the latest version of the legislation, and President Bush has dropped his veto threat.
While the bill still includes a ban on legal representation in civil litigation, the House included additional language where the Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation may consider whether recipients of counseling grants have “a written plan for providing in-person counseling.”
Rep. Mel Watt (D-NC) and Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), chair of the Financial Services Committee, engaged in a colloquy about the meaning of the restriction on legal representation involving civil litigation. Rep. Frank made it clear that, in his view, the restriction applied only to affirmative litigation brought on behalf of a homeowner and not to the representation of an individual who is a defendant in a foreclosure action or presumably an eviction as a result of a foreclosure. This colloquy is part of the legislative history of the act and is persuasive, especially if there is no further clarification of the interpretation of this provision.
Regardless, the restriction only applies to the money provided under this act, and LSC-funded programs are still permitted to use other funds, including LSC funds, to do otherwise permissible civil litigation in foreclosure matters, i.e., for citizens and eligible aliens, not class actions.
From NLADA Legal Aid News, July 24, 2008.
While the bill still includes a ban on legal representation in civil litigation, the House included additional language where the Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation may consider whether recipients of counseling grants have “a written plan for providing in-person counseling.”
Rep. Mel Watt (D-NC) and Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), chair of the Financial Services Committee, engaged in a colloquy about the meaning of the restriction on legal representation involving civil litigation. Rep. Frank made it clear that, in his view, the restriction applied only to affirmative litigation brought on behalf of a homeowner and not to the representation of an individual who is a defendant in a foreclosure action or presumably an eviction as a result of a foreclosure. This colloquy is part of the legislative history of the act and is persuasive, especially if there is no further clarification of the interpretation of this provision.
Regardless, the restriction only applies to the money provided under this act, and LSC-funded programs are still permitted to use other funds, including LSC funds, to do otherwise permissible civil litigation in foreclosure matters, i.e., for citizens and eligible aliens, not class actions.
From NLADA Legal Aid News, July 24, 2008.
