New York City, Dec 18 (THAINDIAN NEWS) In a very surprising move by Citigroup, it has decided to suspend the foreclosures and the evictions for a month. The believers can surely call this a Christmas miracle, or all the affected parties can surely call it as a welcome festive gift. Citigroup Inc. has decided to suspend all foreclosures and evictions for the next 30 days, because they are attempting to find ‘long-term fundamental alternatives’ for the growing problem, reports MSNBC. According to the New York based bank, the suspension will be in effect until January 17, 2010, and applies only to borrowers whose home loans are owned by the Citigroup.

This suspension to all the foreclosures and the evictions means that the Citigroup will halt foreclosure sales and stop evicting homeowners from properties it has already seized till now. This move by Citigroup to suspend foreclosures is going to affect around 4000 families. Out of the 4000 families, the company thinks that it will help 2,000 homeowners with scheduled foreclosure sales and another 2,000 that were due to receive foreclosure notices.

Sanjiv Das, head of the company’s mortgage division, said that the company is working on “some long-term fundamental alternatives” to foreclosure, but declined to be specific. “We know that moratoriums are not permanent solutions,” he said.

Citigroup has enrolled about 100,000 borrowers in the Barack Obama program, but had made only about 270 of those modifications permanent as of the end of last month, according to a Treasury Department report.