This excerpt originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times on January 26, 2012.

Anthony Sanders, a professor of real estate finance at George Mason University, said the new unit would be regulatory overkill and was designed to pressure banks to agree to a proposed $25-billion settlement with federal officials and many state attorneys general to address foreclosure paperwork problems.

"This could have been a last-ditch effort to push them to the finish line," Sanders said of the settlement talks.