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

Posted by Maria Tascon on August 17, 2011 at 3:02am in Short Sale Discussions

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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Replies

  • joe beauchamp August 30, 2011 at 7:26pm

    HA - well, welcome to the BOA game.  Actually, in your case, Elizabeth, you blew it.  the soft denial is for when you HAVE a new buyer, not when you'd like to prolong the foreclosure process by keeping a short sale open (which they somewhat still do).  No, he did the right thing - you don't fit the criterion.  You do NOT have a buyer in hand.  That file sitting there is about the only thing that counts against a BOA negotiator - great deals flushed, etc. have no bearing on his salary.  Getting the files from one side of his desk to the other - that's it.  And, you just let him do that.

    Policy communications at BOA is pretty bad - you had a good chance of a hard denial even if you had a buyer - negotiators are not that informed, and they certainly don't care.

    Besides, I still haven't seen a soft denial make any diff in the time BOA takes to do things.  I have been averaging about 4 (hard) denials because of Equator issues and bank screwups for every file that comes out with a denial or approval.  Soft denial certainly seems like a joke to me.  I'd love to see the same file go through with a soft denial and a regular one - see if there actually is some change.  BOA plays shell games - got Equator because of complaints of processing time - it was the savior.  Hired LRC, AMS, UTLS, etc. because of complaints - they are the saviors.  Got complaints of having to start over if the buyer walks.  Do I believe soft denial is white wash or a real savings?  Hmmm..

    If you are sure you will have a buyer within the week, go resubmit the short sale.  Autho takes a day or two.  You have 14 days to put in the offer info and when you get the contract and pre-approval, you won't have to wait - put them in and all your docs.  If they've assigned a specialist (they don't call them negotiators any more), send an equator email that everything is there - might mention that you know the BPO is in, should be all ready to go - let me know if there is anything I can get for you...  If you have a normal to great negotiator, having everything in, sending a note, being nice and cooperative will probably make it go twice as fast as any soft denial.

  • ElizabethWeintraub00697006LyonRE August 30, 2011 at 9:30am
    I have a negotiator who just sent out a hard denial letter and canceled the file, even though I had emailed him to explain we would have a new buyer within the week, and I asked him to keep the file open. He said, No can do. Slammed it shut. Sent out the denial. I tweeted BofA help 15 minutes ago and nothing.
  • Jeff Payne August 24, 2011 at 5:31am


    Joe, I thought the same thing, I am still shocked that BofA actually has something like this set up.

    I just got an approval for a "substitution buyer" but it took just as long as starting over.  We lost our buyer beginning of June and it took until yesterday to get the new buyer approved.  In the meantime I have gotten 3 new approvals since June 1.  I hope that they can get it figured out soon.
    joe beauchamp said:

    That twitter is kind of a hoot.  When I first found out about it, I asked them - they are some generic customer assistance at BOA.  So, it must get "priority" because of the initiative and the people involved because they aren't in some special area that walks on water.  Hey, as long as it does some good, cool!!Joe,
  • joe beauchamp August 24, 2011 at 4:21am
    That twitter is kind of a hoot.  When I first found out about it, I asked them - they are some generic customer assistance at BOA.  So, it must get "priority" because of the initiative and the people involved because they aren't in some special area that walks on water.  Hey, as long as it does some good, cool!!
  • Smitty August 23, 2011 at 3:22pm
    No problem.  Glad it helped.  I think BOA is trying to polish their image.  I think they are too big  iron out all their issues but the twitter help seems to work well.
  • Jim McCormack August 23, 2011 at 7:40am
    Good information.  I will have to try the Bank of America Twitter (tweet them @bofa_help) when I have a problem with something.
  • Maria Tascon August 23, 2011 at 6:58am

    Hi Smitty,

    Thanks for letting me know about @bofa_help.  It worked.  They contacted me inmediately and scalated the issue.  In 2 days, I made more progress than my 12 day fight in equator. 

    I uploaded all the docs and I am awaiting response.  I hope we can close soon. 

    Thanks again!!!



    Smitty said:

    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.
  • Maria Tascon 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!

  • Jim McCormack 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.
  • joe beauchamp 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!

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