Several distressed homeowners who may be eligible for loan modifications were denied by Chase for a reason that violates the Treasury Department’s rules, according to a recent report from ProPublica, a nonprofit news organization. ProPublica said that six troubled homeowners had been denied loan modifications by Chase Home Finance, JPMorgan’s mortgage servicing arm, on the grounds that their financial hardships were not deemed to be “permanent.” It was unclear what criteria Chase used to judge a hardship as temporary. The examples ProPublica found all occurred before the Treasury explicitly banned these types of denials in December. But the homeowners are still in limbo, and some may face foreclosure, ProPublica reported.