It’s just like reality TV, but not at all — America, here are your top five big greedy banks, and here is the $25 billion mortgage settlement they’re all going home with, now that a federal judge has approved it. That’s their load to carry, after allegations of foreclosure abuses and misconduct in servicing home loans.

Reuters cites court documents that say U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer put her John Hancock on the settlements, which had been announced on Wednesday but weren’t available to the public until yesterday.

In the case, 49 states and the federal government brought civil allegations down on the massive heads of Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo and Ally Financial. The cute part is that none ever agreed any wrongdoing, but will instead each fork over about $5 billion to the federal and state governments.

Another part of the settlement has them agreeing to slash mortgage debt amounts and restructure troubled loans from the pool of loans they service, in order to meet that $5 billion they owe.

The government says it went after the banks to “remediate harms allegedly resulting from the alleged unlawful conduct.”

The only bank thus far to pipe up on the settlement has been Citigroup, which said it’s already been busy taking calls for its program and has “a few hundred” cases going forward to see if they’ll qualify for aid or a mortgage cut.

“Assisting distressed homeowners remains CitiMortgage’s number one priority,” said Citigroup.

Brown-nosing will only get you so far, Citigroup. Just FYI.

Federal judge approves $25 billion mortgage pact [Reuters]

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