Loan Modification

After he bought his Dallas home last year, attorney Talcott Franklin found a novel way to eliminate a musty odor emanating from a basement well installed as part of a previous owner?s air-raid shelter: He used boat hatches to seal it.

This year, the former partner at lobbying firm Patton Boggs LLP also found a unique solution to an even bigger housing problem: getting money back for investors in residential mortgage-backed securities that went bad. Franklin created a clearing house where investors can pool claims and potentially create the necessary legal clout to force mortgage lenders to buy back improperly made loans at the heart of the securities.