New Equator procedures for back up offers when a buyer walks away

I have been working a short sale with BofA through Equator.  I am the listing agent.  Last week, the buyer that we have been working with for about 3 months or more walked away.  I have a better back up offer.  I have received an email from BOFA/Equator about a month ago notifying that we can now submit a back up offer when a buyer walks without having to reinitiate the short sale and keeping the same negotiator. I informed the negotiator about it and, 10 days later, I have not been able to submit anything and the negotiator is telling me that I have to reinitiate the short sale and there is no guarantee that we will have the same negotiator!!!  The oppossite that was mentioned in the email I received.  Am I doing something wrong ???  Is there anything that I need to do to expedite the process?

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Permalink Reply by Christina Conrad on August 17, 2011 at 3:08am
No..you are fine...I had the same thing happen...it depends on the negotiator.  I was told that they have had a lot of gliches with this new system so, a lot of the negotiators just have you restart the ss process.  I have a negotiator that is going through the new process...he stated he has only done it once and it will be a learning experience for the both of us because of all of the glitches...once they get the bugs worked out I am sure it will be standard practice...hope this helps
Permalink Reply by Maria Tascon on August 17, 2011 at 3:13am

Thanks, it makes me feel better.  I am just upset that we have wasted 10 days, none of my requests were not answered and  just until now I am told that I need to do it the same old way... Thanks for sharing.  I will reinitiate it right now. 

 

 

Permalink Reply by Dieter Diaz on August 17, 2011 at 6:45am
You need to send an e-mail via equator to the team lead, customer service and VP to escalate this issue. It depends on the negotiator you are dealing with whether they want to help you get the other offer through. The process is quite simple and saves a lot of time so make sure to escalate properly so you wont have to deal with this non cooperative person.
Permalink Reply by Enrique Vasquez-Plaza on August 17, 2011 at 9:08am

Your negotiator does not know the procedure (a very common and very serious issue on BOFA short sale processing personel: they know nothing due to lack or training and lack of system effectivenes and continue silly changes...)

 

Listen to Dieter Diaz, you must email a serious email, I usually put the date of teh request on the title and I capitalized all letters, and CC all contacts, VP, manager, team lead, negotiator, customer service, BACI, etc...

 

Good luck!

 

Permalink Reply by Maria Tascon on August 17, 2011 at 9:54am

Thank you so much for all your comments and advice.  I agree with you and Dieter, my negotiator is clueless... I tried to reiniitiate the short sale this morning, but I couldn't because the file is active in the system. 

I have been sending emails since last week to get this resolved and copying team lead, supervisor, etc and have not received solution to this issue.

I read the guide again, and everything that my negotiator is saying is the exact opposite of what the guide mentions, how agravating!!!!

I just sent a long, very  serious email, to almost every body in the contact list, I attached the guide I received and itemizing evey step that I am supposed to follow and showing how I am being told the opposite.  I hope this takes me somewhere, I have already wasted 10 days, lost 3 good offers. 

Thanks again!

 

 

Permalink Reply by Scott Gregory on August 17, 2011 at 11:17am
Don't escalate inside Equator ... find contacts and escalate outside of Equator.
Permalink Reply by Maria Tascon on August 17, 2011 at 11:32am
Any ideas where can I find those contacts? I haven't had any success emailing all those contacts through equator.
Thanks again for all the comments/advice. This site is awesome.
Permalink Reply by Smitty on August 17, 2011 at 2:42pm
tweet them @bofa_help - It works. They respond.  We are dealing with the exact same situation.  Our negotiator did a soft denial and we were able to resubmit with a new buyer and keep the same negotiator. I guess the hard denial takes it right out of equator so I think if you can still see it in the system, that's a good sign.
Permalink Reply by Maria Tascon on August 18, 2011 at 9:52am
Smitty, thanks, it worked.  They contacted me and said that they are going to escalate it.  They did tell me that the negotiator did a hard denial.  They said they will contact me back in 48 hours.  I had called customer service yesterday, before I got your message, and they told me that the borrower needs to call them to give them some information so we can move forward.  She has not called yet because we feel that we don't want to trigger something else in the system that is going to delay this even more.
Permalink Reply by joe beauchamp on August 21, 2011 at 6:26am

My first reaction to BOA saying it can do something is to laugh.  Sure enough, their soft decline didn't work, had to resubmit. My next experience with this was when some BOA negotiator read a comment from a UTLS rep asking for permission to fix an Equator problem.  Butting in, he did a soft decline - right after BOA told UTLS to take no more new FNMA HAFA sales - so, that got kicked out of HAFA permanently.

I've had one file that someone at BOA keeps killing for HAFA, so on this last resubmit, I put an extra letter in the 1st name.  Last week the negotiator killed it saying wrong buyer.  So, for the first time out of between 6 and 12 resubmissions (equator problems, bad denials, etc.), I finally did something wrong - an extra letter in the first name of the buyer.  For that, resubmit, BOA has their doc people go over everything again.  Yep, the BOA way.  Why make a simple correction when you can create work for a whole team and start all over?  If this jerk really thought that I had a new buyer with the same address and everything except 1 different letter in his first name, he should have done a soft denial, right?

So, my point here is that a lot depends upon the negotiator - if he has a clue of BOA policies, if he cares, if he follows protocol, if he makes things up.  Also, of course, that **I** technically actually caused this one denial out of the many - and that is frustrating - you need to be absolutely perfect and vigilant when dealing with BOA.  (Also, I figure that if this guy can be such a pinhead because I spelled Jahed as Jahled, then it is a good thing to get him off of the file - I want someone with a brain working on my file so I might finally get this one off of my desk..

I would actually like to know/see a soft denial work.  I think I average 4 denials for "equator problems" and screwups vs a real denial or approval - AVERAGE..  So, I'm doing resubmits fairly constantly.  How is a soft denial going to be different?  You'll get a new negotiator, the docs and BPO will be there.  I'm guessing that it takes the same amount of time for you to see an approval/denial.  Maybe some day I'll run into a legit soft denial and find out?  Maybe.. ;-)

 

Oh, and as mentioned elsewhere, negotiators, and others at BOA, because of overwork, poor management, not caring, etc. often can swear to you something that is diametrically opposed to policy - where another negotiator will state the opposite - the real policy.  So, if you think that the negotiator is off his rocker, he likely is.  And don't count on finding the facts via just 1 more BOA contact.  Bad info is rampant throughout.  That includes, but is less likely, going up and down the escalation specialists chain.  It leaves me in awe that a company can have such poor communication and be so prosperous and large - with the exception of gov't entities - I don't expect anything of value from them, I suppose.  In other words, if there is something that you think could be helpful to you and you get "no" about it, check it out with other contacts to BOA to see if you or the negotiator is correct.  I'd also suggest, since you probably already tried to convince the negotiator that he is incorrect, that you get the file denied and resubmit it to get another negotiator.  That is usually much faster and less hassle than going through the process of forcing a negotiator to do the right thing - and you can guess how he feels about your file at that point.

Yeah, wordy - but it is Sunday and I momentarily have the extra time - sort of sorry... HA!

Permalink Reply by Jim McCormack on August 21, 2011 at 2:25pm
Your negotiator can do what is called a "soft decline" and then create a task for you to submit a new offer.  The Equator system was just updated to handle this feature in August 2011.  I am doing this now on a file with Bank of America via Equator.
Permalink Reply by Maria Tascon on August 23, 2011 at 6:55am

Jim and Joe,

Thanks for your comments.  I actually contacted BofA through twitter, per Smitty's advice and I believe that it worked so much better that all my serious emails to the whole Equator contacts.  My negotiator was very incompetent and later found out that she did a 'hard decline'.  I was being told that I had to reinitiate the short sale and that my client had to call  to provide some information to proceed with the process etc.  The twitter team at BofA contacted me inmediately, scalated the issue, and the next day I got a new negotiator and was able to upload all the paperwork for the new offer (it took 12 days for the other useless negotiator and she did not resolve anything).  I am awaiting response on the docs I submitted.  I hope it will get approved soon. I am ready to get this file off my desk.

So far I am very satisfied with @BofA_help

joe beauchamp said:

My first reaction to BOA saying it can do something is to laugh.  Sure enough, their soft decline didn't work, had to resubmit. My next experience with this was when some BOA negotiator read a comment from a UTLS rep asking for permission to fix an Equator problem.  Butting in, he did a soft decline - right after BOA told UTLS to take no more new FNMA HAFA sales - so, that got kicked out of HAFA permanently.

I've had one file that someone at BOA keeps killing for HAFA, so on this last resubmit, I put an extra letter in the 1st name.  Last week the negotiator killed it saying wrong buyer.  So, for the first time out of between 6 and 12 resubmissions (equator problems, bad denials, etc.), I finally did something wrong - an extra letter in the first name of the buyer.  For that, resubmit, BOA has their doc people go over everything again.  Yep, the BOA way.  Why make a simple correction when you can create work for a whole team and start all over?  If this jerk really thought that I had a new buyer with the same address and everything except 1 different letter in his first name, he should have done a soft denial, right?

So, my point here is that a lot depends upon the negotiator - if he has a clue of BOA policies, if he cares, if he follows protocol, if he makes things up.  Also, of course, that **I** technically actually caused this one denial out of the many - and that is frustrating - you need to be absolutely perfect and vigilant when dealing with BOA.  (Also, I figure that if this guy can be such a pinhead because I spelled Jahed as Jahled, then it is a good thing to get him off of the file - I want someone with a brain working on my file so I might finally get this one off of my desk..

I would actually like to know/see a soft denial work.  I think I average 4 denials for "equator problems" and screwups vs a real denial or approval - AVERAGE..  So, I'm doing resubmits fairly constantly.  How is a soft denial going to be different?  You'll get a new negotiator, the docs and BPO will be there.  I'm guessing that it takes the same amount of time for you to see an approval/denial.  Maybe some day I'll run into a legit soft denial and find out?  Maybe.. ;-)

 

Oh, and as mentioned elsewhere, negotiators, and others at BOA, because of overwork, poor management, not caring, etc. often can swear to you something that is diametrically opposed to policy - where another negotiator will state the opposite - the real policy.  So, if you think that the negotiator is off his rocker, he likely is.  And don't count on finding the facts via just 1 more BOA contact.  Bad info is rampant throughout.  That includes, but is less likely, going up and down the escalation specialists chain.  It leaves me in awe that a company can have such poor communication and be so prosperous and large - with the exception of gov't entities - I don't expect anything of value from them, I suppose.  In other words, if there is something that you think could be helpful to you and you get "no" about it, check it out with other contacts to BOA to see if you or the negotiator is correct.  I'd also suggest, since you probably already tried to convince the negotiator that he is incorrect, that you get the file denied and resubmit it to get another negotiator.  That is usually much faster and less hassle than going through the process of forcing a negotiator to do the right thing - and you can guess how he feels about your file at that point.

Yeah, wordy - but it is Sunday and I momentarily have the extra time - sort of sorry... HA!

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