Standard and Poor’s is the first rating agency to face civil fraud charges from the federal government. The Justice Department filed a civil complaint against the company on Monday. It’s the first federal enforcement action against a credit rating firm since the financial crisis almost five years ago.

Frontline producer and correspondent Martin Smith talks about his investigation into why the U.S. Department of Justice has failed to act on credible evidence that Wall Street knowingly packaged and sold toxic mortgage loans to investors, loans that brought the U.S. and world economies to the brink of collapse. Frontline’s documentary “The Untouchables” includes interviews with top prosecutors, government officials and industry whistle-blowers, and reports allegations that Wall Street bankers ignored pervasive fraud when buying pools of mortgage loans. “The Untouchables” airs January 22, at 10 p.m., on PBS.

The Wall Street bank Goldman Sachs has faced intense scrutiny for its alleged involvement in the types of dodgy mortgage deals that led to the 2008 financial crisis. But after an extensive investigation, the Justice Department has announced that won't prosecute Goldman Sachs or its employees for alleged wrongdoing.

A company called Mortgage Resolution Partners wants local governments to use eminent domain to help homeowners drowning in debt.

Bank of America will allow a limited number of distressed or underwater homeowners in New York State to become renters of their own properties.

Since early 2007, 4 million families have lost their homes to foreclosure. Only now have state officials around the country begun to finalize a multi-billion dollar settlement with the biggest mortgage-providing banks that engaged in abusive or misleading practices, like robo-signing. Some critics, including those who have already had their homes go underwater, worry that it may let the banks off too easily.

After months of barely-concealed conflict, the Obama administration and New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman say they will work closely together to investigate the role of big banks in causing the mortgage crisis.

Monday is the deadline for homeowners facing foreclosure to qualify for a federal housing grant, but housing groups working to sign people up say only a small percentage of homeowners qualify because of rules that make many ineligible.

Professor of real estate and co-director of the Richman Center for Business, Law, and Public Policy at Columbia Business School, Christopher Mayer delves into the new housing numbers and suggests that allowing all homeowners to refinance their mortgages would help the market.

For more information about Professor Mayer's proposal, click here.

A U.S. regulator filed lawsuits Friday against 17 of the nation's largest banks over losses from mortgage-backed securities, aiming to recoup billion of dollars stemming from the failed investments.

When Bank of America decided to buy troubled mortgage lender Countrywide Financial during the financial crisis of 2008, it many have underestimated the foreclosure costs that would come along with it.

In an exclusive story in The New York Times this morning, Wall Street and finance reporter Louise Story writes that the behemoth insurance company American International Group Inc. is going to sue Bank of America, claiming the banking institution provided false information on mortgage bonds to AIG and ratings agencies, which lead to losses of more than $10 billion.

You don’t get people from all 50 states to agree very often, and getting all 50 state Attorneys General to agree would seem almost impossible. Yet that’s the goal of Iowa’s AG Tom Miller, who is spearheading the national effort to find a settlement with major banks and mortgage servicers over the recent foreclosure fraud crisis.

One cannot imagine Miller’s job is an easy one. New Yorkers, and all Americans concerned about the abuses in the mortgage industry, can thank our own Attorney General Eric Schneiderman for making this task a little tougher.

In 2008, the bubble popped. The financial crisis sent our economy swirling into chaos and pushed us into this Great Recession. Many Americans lost faith in our private institutions that caused this mess and in our public institutions that should have seen it coming. The fallout shined a light on the double-dealing shell game being played by our financial giants. Unfortunately, they weren’t playing with Monopoly money. The high stakes had high costs: a devastating spike in unemployment, a national foreclosure crisis based on mortgage fraud and depleted pensions and retirement accounts for working Americans.

At least those whose reckless — and potentially criminal — gambles drove us into this ditch got what they had coming…bonuses, a light reprimand and carte blanche to do it all again.

It’s enough to make you so angry you’d consider dumping tea in Boston Harbor.

Big banks and over-committed mortgage-holders have been under the foreclosure microscope for a long time. Foreclosure lawyers are next up for scrutiny; according to an article from The New York Times, an increasing number of judges are accusing lawyers of processing inaccurate and even fabricated documents in foreclosure actions when representing banks. Are these accusations accurate, and if so, what is the source of the problem?