The state Division of Banking will begin receiving more specific information about mortgage foreclosures starting this fall.

State Banking Commissioner Sally Cline says a new state law requires trustees conducting residential mortgage foreclosures to report the information to county clerks. The first reports are due in October.

The division released survey results Tuesday concerning foreclosures made in 2008. There were 2,577, up 12 percent from the previous year. Commissioner Cline says only 11 percent of foreclosures in 2007-2008 came from banks chartered in West Virginia.

"That should be the headline," Cline said. "Our banks were not enticed by the subprime loans that were so prevalent throughout the rest of the country."

Cline adds banks that make their home in the Mountain State stand by sound lending practices. "They're out there in their communities and they are serving them," she said.

Cline says the survey could not differentiate between commercial and residential foreclosures, but the new law will make that possible. "County clerks will file quarterly records of foreclosure sales with us," she said. "We'll serve as the repository, collect the information and make it publicly available."

The survey showed significant increases in foreclosures in Berkeley and Jefferson counties in the eastern panhandle, but a decrease in foreclosures in populous Kanawha and Putnam counties.