Lincoln homeowner Pat Freeland told a House committee Thursday that when Bank of America officials said they were modifying her mortgage to avoid foreclosure, they lied — and that lawmakers shouldn’t vote for a pair of bills protecting the banks from liability.

 “I’m telling you right now, as long as our hometown banks are selling these loans to megabanks, we are at risk as homeowners,” she said. “What we had was not free-flowing communication with our banker, but free-flowing lies.”

Freeland joined several homeowners and attorneys testifying against Senate bills 280 and 281, which would narrow the liability of banks for their lending practices and forbid the award of punitive damages in consumer-protection lawsuits.

They said if the two bills had been in effect, many Montana homeowners who sued Bank of America and other lenders for misleading them on the status of their distressed mortgage would have had no legal…