Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Theresa Ramos on March 12, 2013 at 11:46am

Have you tried Tweeting them to get it escalated and moving? This has always got me results! 

Permalink Reply by Seth Russell on March 12, 2013 at 11:48am

BofA Escalation Team...#866-880-1232 X 5..

Failing that go directly to FHA..open a ticketwith the FHA Case # (BofA should have this) with the FHA Nat'l Service Center and file a complaint against their servicer?? Just a thought if this is an FHA loan.

 

Good luck,

Seth Russell

Permalink Reply by joe beauchamp on March 12, 2013 at 12:20pm

If BofA were doing short sales for a living, they'd be a lot different. If they ran a McD's the way they do SS's, it would be out of business in a week. So, you know where their ..uh.. "heart" is. You have lower level people than ever before with less authority and understanding. This one's world is the liens, apparently. FHA has a dumb rule that liens must be handled BEFORE you even get the ATP. Fortunately, usually, these are incorrect judgements by a lousy BofA title search so you need to get the notarized letter stating that BofA is out of its mind and the liens are not the seller's. Why before you have a buyer or are even close to a closing? Dumb. But, that is from FHA. BofA taking forever, not asking for things at the right time, asking for things over and over, well that is BofA - what do they care? They are paid by the hour and every hour a short sale doesn't go through, BofA collects more "maintenance" fee from the investor . So what if you get down to averaging $0.36/hr after you are done dealing with them? They're happy..

Permalink Reply by Short Sale Superstars LLC on March 12, 2013 at 1:11pm

Valeria,

     If this is going through the pre foreclosure sale program you need to have proof of all liens being satisfied for 2,500 or some sort of proof that liens will be satisfied. What exactly is the hold up in your transaction? There are specific FHA reps at Bank of America who handle FHA escalations. If you have any questions or concerns please feel free to reach out to me.

[email protected]

www.ishortsalenow.com

310-564-6389

Permalink Reply by Valerie Hernandez on March 13, 2013 at 2:11pm

@Theresa, yes I have done the tweet thing. they responded but their word didn't mean anything to the ss department. thanks

@Seth, I did go to (FHA) HUD,that is who keeps emailing the negotiator's boss. It is not working either, at least not much. thanks though

@Joe, I understand about the liens, but this was ALL addressed with the phase 1 negotiator back in September, but this new negotiator is just being a pain in the butt....

Permalink Reply by joe beauchamp on March 13, 2013 at 5:39pm

Valerie, I only expect occasional pockets of sanity from BofA and WF. Having worked ..uh...with them for over 4 years, I spent plenty of time trying to understand the beast. BofA's main thrust is bureaucracy first, servicing their investor is often not even next in their priorities (so guess where income removing people like us fall). Over the past 3 years, they have sliced up the position of negotiator to tiny offices of responsibility - like McD's assigning people to prepare just the bottom half of buns and they are graded on the rules given to them for just that. No understanding of a whole short sale, incented to follow rules, not handle a wheat bun let alone a complete burger or heaven forbid a whole freakin' order including fries. (hmm.. I must be hungry..??)

BofA's system is a mess - they could save themselves at least thousands by having better instructions (really, you look to see what "other lien" means in their offer task and help gives you "answer in dollars and cents"). Their soft denial is barely better than a full restart - you still end up putting everything in again. As always, if BofA screwed something up, at most you will get "sorry" - and nothing for you except to actually start all over (yes, a few years ago, I actually got a "sorry" from them - pretty rare). [OK, I'm sure nobody will believe this, but about 4 years ago, 1 negotiator actually took a file that was denied incorrectly and put it back right where it was before denial. Yep, really - and no, I didn't see bigfoot, too.]

With that as a base for BofA, I always expect to be redundantly entering data. Given the FHA bureaucracy on top of it and that FHA actually does its job sometimes and penalizes BofA for screwing up, putting the 2 together, these "specialists" are anal about getting hit for the dumbest FHA things. I don't see this changing. But then if you were in short sales 4 years ago, faxing doc's 5 times and taking a month for the bank to acknowledge them - while being on hold for 2 hours to talk to a rep makes putting in the notarized lien doc a second time seem like a joy, no?

Permalink Reply by Kathleen Couch on March 25, 2013 at 4:19am

Joe, I know what you are talking about.  Would you believe I have been working on a short sale for this property since 2008!!!! 1. losing faxes 2. then employees or servicers that did not respond. 3. Several times approved but buyer had walked 4. Two times seller initiated bankruptcy. 5. Buyer has been waiting a year, was approved before, but the bankruptcy. 6. Now, all corrections were made on time but LRC personnel did not see the documents in the task they had given, only the one I put directly in the library because there wasn't a task. Now hard decline. 

I have worked many, many short sales successfully, in fact many that did not seem they would work, I was able to get approved.  But this one gets all the incompetent people, nothing changes.

Permalink Reply by Rachael Babinchak on March 14, 2013 at 1:14am

So Valerie, detail the lien situation...maybe one of us has run into this before with having to take care of a lien, or get something in writing for BAC/FHA so they can move forward.  What's the amount?  To Who?  HELOC?  Purchase Money?  Mechanics, Tax lien?  What is the seller's response, position, ideas regarding the lien?

Also, in the right hand corner of the screen search for the terms "Office of the Comptroller", "FDIC", "Consumer Protection" and/or "Dept Treasury".  (Or Google Search) I have and have known others who have reached out and/or  written formal, detailed complaints to these entities and been able to get through to Bank of America especially.

Permalink Reply by joe beauchamp on March 25, 2013 at 11:39am

Wow, since 2008 - then you saw the introduction of reotrans - where BofA just destroyed files all over the place by simply stating that you have to start over in reotrans - I lost many buyers with that little game. When I look back, I see more logic and interest in actually getting the short sale done up to maybe 2 yrs ago. Now they have sludged it down to the lowest denomination of worker possible and taken thought out of it until you get to a closer - which is about the same - sometimes not all there. Disheartening, but I think that is the servicers' aim - make as many agents run the other way as possible and hang on to bad loans for monthly income as long as possible with a nice big kick for foreclosure and get it back as REO for a while.

Permalink Reply by TOP END Properties on April 2, 2013 at 2:55pm

Escalate to their manager and contact HUD for escalation .. that's all you can do.  I have a file that they are doing something similar.  They claimed they had 'email problems'  .. (for 4 months?).  After putting the heat on them, they seem to be moving very quickly now.  If they are requesting documents from you, I would suggest complying.