U.S. Treasury sets guidance to simplify Short Sale process.

On Monday the US Treasury stated guidelines for lenders to follow for processing short sale requests.
Guidelines address barriers that have often sidelined short sales by setting limits on the time it takes a bank to approve an offer, freeing borrowers from debt and capping claims of subordinate lenders.

They include financial incentives to servicers and secondary investors for approving short sale offers, a 10-day time-table for responding to short sale requests/offers, and eliminating deficiency judgements.
It also prohibits mortgage servicing companies from reducing real estate commissions on the sale, a practice that has dissuaded many agents from taking short sale listings.