I was recently advised that BOA recently restricted all agents of a large brokerage because one short sale file allegedly contained fraudulent document(s). Furthermore, when any of these agents jumped ship to another brokerage because of their inability to utilize Equator their accounts remained restricted based on their prior involvement with the original brokerage. If any document(s) were fraudulent they would have been provided by the Seller, not the listing agent. However, BOA appears to be holding the brokerage and all of their associates responsible. This has presented further problems in that this restriction applies to all other lenders utilizing Equator.
The question for this discussion is has this occurred to anyone that you have heard about? NAR is currently working to resolve this issue and we would like to know if this is wide spread or just an isolated situation.
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Today is Jan 9,2012 has anyone been able to confirm BOA restrictions and define what truly is happening ? Identify Brokerage? Confirm Fraud is the reason ?
Lot of discussion on this matter to have it evaporate ....
Dena, I talked to a VP at Bank of America short sale dept and spoke with a good contact at Equator and both tell me that this is akin to an urban legend and that it did not happen. I have searched the internet and haven't found anything on it either and I would think that with the large number of members on this site, it would have affected someone here or someone would have posted something about it
There should be a BofA rep at our short sale mastermind next month, I will ask that person too
Well this thread has certainly veered off topic! I love heated discussions. Please continue to keep it civil. Thanks
Hi Stephen,
I hadn't heard of this happening, but it's scary because how are we supposed to know if a seller has committed fraud? I just recently discovered from a lender that my seller omitted listing a $20K savings account (at their bank no less) on her financial statement that I submitted on her behalf. They were not happy about her omission and demanded $5K in a cash contribution at COE from her, but yikes, what if they thought I knew about it? I tell my clients to include everything that is asked for by the lender, but unfortunately, we cannot control, nor know, if they are being dishonest. I practice the highest of ethics, I work hard for my sellers and love helping the ones who are cooperative and appreciative, but I refuse to give up my hard earned livelihood for a dishonest seller.
Hi Donna. You have an interesting question. IF you feel that you are the 'honesty police' for the sellers lender (which I do not believe you are) then you truly have a delima. But if you are a Realtor whose job is to find sellers and buyers and either 'list their home or sell them a home. Then to disclosure to the appropriate parties 'what you know via visual inspection and seller/buyer statements made' and what is disclosed to you via involved parties (seller/buyer/3rd party vendors). Then the loan servicing industries job is to 'collect and underwrite' data to satisfy their guidelines.
If not, you would need to be licensed as a loan originator in California and hold one of those funky Loan Originator licenses.
We are middle men, collecting requested data, and forwarding it to the loan servicer who has the responsibility to use it and other data they get 'outside' our transaction to decide if they will allow the short sale to be approved or not and upon what terms they find acceptable.'
Now when banks can 'punish' Real Estate Brokers for 'forwarding faulty documentation' and hold them responsible for 'sellers' fraudulant acts, then the banks have found the soft underbelly of our industry and clearly have decided to work against us instead of with us. (Unless the agent - who is the responsibility of the broker- forged documents or committed the fraud in question) If the REal Estate office did the act and the broker didn't find it during his duties of overseeing all transactions of his agents, they should be blacklisted 'after being found guilty under due process' and not because some person felt their was fraud.
Realtors and brokers have the same protection under the constitution to due process. They could probably get a good settlement under the RICO act, if the implication of fraud was unwarranted! ouch!
And that is how it should be. As we should be working for our seller and our buyer and let the banks deal with their crap on their own! But that is just my opinion. Thoughts?
Excellent response. I agree completely!
As you can see, the lending industry IS using our way of doing business against us. For Realtors who think that banks are NOT in the real estate sales business. . . Think again. If we do not watch and do a top notch job, theywill use stuff like the story above to get regulators to let them in and when that happens, goodbye Realtors!
My sentiments exactly. We must self-police, or I see our industry going the way of current Banking regulations and being subject to the same terms of the SAFE ACT as Lending Professionals.
Tni, trust me it takes alot more than that to offend me :) I really could not care any less if you came from being a garbage collection professional or if you were the attorney general. It is irrelevant to me and to anyone else out there. We will continue to disagree as you believe that to be considered a "profession", the real estate world would need to require more education and I seem to believe that a "profession" is something that we engage in for money to make a living. like I said before, a profession and professionalism do not always go hand in hand, with realtors, attorneys, doctors, chefs, or NBA players. I do find it a bit odd that you think real estate sales is not a profession but you offer professional real estate services.
You seem to want to diminish "average" real estate agents by saying that they know nothing more than the average Joe on the street and I do not believe that to be true. The definition of average could be very debatable. Average in your market might not be average in my market. Assuming that the "average" Joe knows as much about real estate sales as the average realtor is a bit of a stretch. Even if the average realtor only sold 5 properties a year, they would certainly know more than the average seller who tends to live in a home for 7 years.
One thing we can agree on is that it is too easy to get a real estate license and too easy to keep a real estate license, I have been a proponent of making it tougher to get a license and requiring more education but that is not likely as long as NAR and the state associations are all about quantity and not quality.
Jeff and Tni you are both basically saying the same thing.
You are both right.
I agree with Tni that extra education in fields that are compatible with real estate make you better at what you do.
For example I have a graduate degree in counseling and undergraduate in Speech Communication and Marketing.
Does that come handy every day. Yes!
As far as I am concerned you are both superior professionals and I am glad you are here to help us in this journey we are all in together.
Natalie Arndt
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