Tag Archives: Bank of America

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have instructed their selling agents to move forward with transactions involving foreclosed properties in cases where sales were suspended due to potential problems with the legal paperwork. The GSEs were forced to temporarily halt the sale of certain properties when news surfaced that some of the nation's largest servicers had been employing so-called robo-signers. Now that case reviews have uncovered no evidence of improper foreclosures, Fannie and Freddie are moving to proceed with REO sales.

Maine attorney general Janet T. Mills announced last week that negotiations with GMAC Mortgage LLC and Bank of America had resulted in a temporary halt in foreclosure sales in the state. The two lenders have agreed not to proceed to judgments on any pending matters in Maine until they have completed an internal review of their foreclosure procedures and discussed the procedures with the attorney general.

The headline foreclosure news for the past couple of months has been the suspension of foreclosures by a handful of lenders after robo-signers and procedural deficiencies were uncovered in their servicing shops. The foreclosure tracking firm ForeclosureRadar says while the announcements initially focused on 23 judicial foreclosure states outside of the company's coverage area, GMAC, PNC, and Bank of America all later expanded their suspensions, and the impact is now beginning to show up in non-judicial West Coast states.

New York City Comptroller John C. Liu has called on the directors at Bank of America, Wells Fargo, JP Morgan Chase and Citigroup to conduct an independent audit of their mortgage and foreclosure practices. Liu, who is a trustee of the New York City Pension Funds called upon the banks to perform the audit on behalf of the group.

A study released Thursday by J.D. Power and Associates shows that the time from submission of a mortgage application to approval time has increased by more than a week when compared to a year ago, despite changes in RESPA guidelines intended to streamline the process. J.D. Power says this longer timeline has had a negative impact on borrower satisfaction. The nation's largest mortgage lenders - BofA, JPMorgan, and Citi - ranked lowest in the firm's customer satisfaction survey.

The industry's robo-signing problems were the focus on Capitol Hill Tuesday. Executives from major banks, including BofA and Chase, were on hand at a Senate Banking Committee hearing to defend the validity of their foreclosure actions and detail changes that have been made to ensure the integrity of the process. But lawmakers were hardnosed and unforgiving in their accusations. And the hearing was not without incident. Testimony was interrupted by the CEO of a nonprofit advocacy group yelling for distressed borrowers to get their say.

Bank of America says Old Republic International is wrongfully withholding payment on hundreds of millions of dollars in mortgage insurance claims on loans that have defaulted. BofA has filed a lawsuit against the mortgage insurer seeking to recover more than $160 million in damages. Bank of America says between 2009 and 2010, claims paid by Old Republic under its policy fell by 75 percent and denials persist, although the mortgage insurer markets its services as protecting lenders ""against default loss for virtually any reason.""

At the 2010 Realtors Conference, real estate professionals were cautiously optimistic about the current and future state of the industry. Most agreed that the rise in home sales and prices during the boom was both unrealistic and unsustainable. Today, the industry has returned to a more sound and balanced idea of homeownership. But current conditions mandate agents educate themselves about buying and selling distressed properties and working with investor buyers, particularly when it comes to handling short sales.

Industry data released Monday shows that the biggest originator of home loans is based on the West Coast, while the biggest mortgage servicer is based on the East Coast. With more than $100 billion in new home loans, Wells Fargo held onto the top spot among mortgage originators during the third quarter of this year. Bank of America took the lead spot in the mortgage servicer rankings, with just over $2 trillion in residential home loans in its servicing portfolio as of September 30th.

JPMorgan Chase says it will re-file affidavits for some 127,000 foreclosures that have been on hold because of ""robo-signing"" issues. According to a company official, the resubmission of corrected documentation should begin by mid-November and will take at least three to four months to complete. The bank says it risks losing a couple million dollars each month the foreclosure proceedings are delayed. Reviews have confirmed that all foreclosure decisions have been based on materially accurate information, according to JPMorgan.