BofA Completes an Additional 16,000 Permanent HAMP Mods in May

""Bank of America's"":https://www.bankofamerica.com/index.jsp loss mitigation activity under the administration's Home Affordable Modification Program[IMAGE]

(HAMP) has risen once again. In an announcement Tuesday, the Calabasas, California-based bank said it converted an additional 16,000 homeowners from trial to permanent contracts in the past month, bringing its total completed HAMP modifications to more than 70,000.

""Bank of America continued to make significant progress in converting HAMP trial modifications to completed modifications last month,"" said Rebecca Mairone, default servicing executive for Bank of America Home Loans.

Mairone noted, though, that Bank of America does not expect these modifications to be fully reflected in the

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Treasury Department's monthly progress report, which should be released sometime within the coming week. She said the figures will likely differ due to issues the bank experienced in uploading files to the computerized reporting system.

According to a statement, Bank of America believes more than 7,000 permanent modifications were not recorded as complete. As a result, the bank expects Treasury's report for May 2010 to reflect only 63,000 permanent HAMP modifications by Bank of America.

In its statement, the bank noted that the electronic reporting ""impasse"" will have no impact on these homeowners, as their permanent HAMP mortgages are already in effect.

While HAMP remains at the center of Bank of America's effort to keep financially distressed homeowners in their homes, the bank said it also considers a wide range of proprietary modification programs or individualized solutions for customers who don't qualify for the program. Since January 2008, Bank of America has completed more than 560,000 modifications outside of HAMP, including nearly 71,000 non-HAMP modifications so far this year.

All told, through both HAMP and non-HAMP solutions, the bank said it has completed more than 630,000 modifications since January 2008.