With the real estate market still trying to recover, the state of California wants to make sure families are staying in their homes. Lawmakers are expected to approve the California Homeowner Bill of Rights (or SB 900), which is aimed at giving homeowners fair treatment if they want to try and stay in their homes. The LA Times outlines the bill's provisions in three key areas:

One such provision would require mortgage loan servicers to give their borrowers a single point of contact instead of bouncing them around from office to office.

A second would limit banks' ability to begin a foreclosure process if the borrowers have filed documents requesting a loan modification that would lower their monthly payments.

A third would give homeowners the ability to sue servicers, under certain restrictions, alleging that they were wrongly foreclosed upon.

Passage by the committee is expected next week.

The number of foreclosures in the Northeast Los Angeles real estate market have slowed, as with many averages across the US, but that may be due to a lag in the foreclosure paperwork by lenders. Some expect the market to remain down through next year.