Business in brief: Businesses agree to pay settlement
Three businesses offering foreclosure rescue services agreed to pay $290,000 in restitution as part of a settlement with the Washington Attorney General’s Office.
The companies, including Fiscal Dynamics Inc., and Cumulative LLC of Tacoma, along with Northwest Assets of Seattle, searched public records to find and target Washington residents who had fallen behind on their property taxes and faced foreclosure.
According to a news release from the Attorney General, the businesses, which denied the allegations, offered to pay off delinquent taxes to prevent foreclosure. In exchange, the homeowners would transfer title of the home to the company for a small sum.
The homeowners were then swamped with paperwork and gave up their power of attorney.
“We believe the defendants exploited the public’s unfamiliarity with the tax foreclosure process and profited unfairly at the expense of desperate homeowners,” said Attorney Rob McKenna in the release. “They told property owners that they would solve their foreclosure problems.
“But often, their real intent was to let the property go to auction and take any excess proceeds from the sale – money that would have gone to the property owner if the defendants hadn’t ‘helped’ them.”
Foreclosures are on the rise across the country. In Washington last year, one of every 129 homes, or 18,527 homes statewide, were foreclosed on. Dave Huey, an assistant attorney general, said the homeowners are often better off if their homes are sold at auction because after taxes are paid, state law requires surplus to go to the homeowner.
Washington
Energy companies may buy reactors
Energy companies could be as close as a year away from ordering the first new nuclear reactors to be built in the United States since the 1970s, industry officials said Wednesday.
The assessment came after TXU Corp. and Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries reached a nonbinding deal under which TXU would use the Japanese company’s design for up to three potential nuclear reactors in Texas.
Adrian Heymer, senior director of new plant deployment at the Nuclear Energy Institute, a Washington-based trade group, said in an interview that power companies such as Progress Energy Inc., Duke Energy Corp., Southern Co, Dominion Resources Inc., Entergy Corp. and NRG Energy Inc. are among the companies that could be first to order a reactor – at an estimated cost of $3.5 billion to $5 billion.
Detroit
General Motors reports profit
General Motors Corp. accomplished something in the fourth quarter of 2006 that domestic automakers have been unable to do for some time: It reported a profit.
For the quarter, the world’s biggest automaker on Wednesday reported net income of $950 million due to the benefits of cost cuts, higher automotive revenues and a gain on the sale of its finance division. It was a turnaround from a $6.6 billion loss a year ago.