Mortgage relief deal Sandra Guy: Nearly 11,000 Illinoisans with Countrywide mortgages -- most of them in the Chicago area -- are expected to get help to avoid foreclosure after Countrywide's new owner, Bank of America, agreed to an $8.7 billion settlement with Illinois and 10 other states. Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan's office helped resolve a lawsuit that alleged Countrywide put people into loans, mostly subprime loans, that the would-be homeowners could not afford.