Bank of America Foreclosure Delays

Weitz - Don't get too excited by the title. Unforutnately, Washington is not included in the states effected (see below).

AP:

Bank of America is delaying foreclosures in 23 states as it examines whether it rushed the foreclosure process for thousands of homeowners without reading the documents. The move adds the nation's largest bank to a growing list of mortgage companies whose employees signed documents in foreclosure cases without verifying the information in them.

Two other companies, Ally Financial Inc.'s GMAC Mortgage unit and JPMorgan Chase, have halted tens of thousands of foreclosure cases after similar problems became public.

The document problems could cause thousands of homeowners to contest foreclosures that are in the works or have been completed. If the problems turn up at other lenders, a foreclosure crisis that's already likely to drag on for several more years could persist even longer. Analysts caution that most homeowners facing foreclosure are still likely to lose their homes.

State attorneys general, who enforce foreclosure laws, are stepping up pressure on the industry. On Friday, Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal asked a state court to freeze all home foreclosures for 60 days. Doing so "should stop a foreclosure steamroller based on defective documents," he said.

And California Attorney General Jerry Brown called on JPMorgan to suspend foreclosures unless it could show it complied with a state consumer protection law. The law requires lenders to contact borrowers at risk of foreclosure to determine whether they qualify for mortgage assistance.

Mark Paustenbach, a Treasury Department spokesman, said the Treasury has asked federal regulators "to look into these troubling developments."

A document obtained Friday by the Associated Press showed a Bank of America official acknowledging in a legal proceeding that she signed up to 8,000 foreclosure documents a month and typically didn't read them.

Weitz – 8,000/ month!! That is nearly 45 per hour!! Perhaps you should hire some more people, Bank of America!!! Unfortunately, foreclosures are not money makers for the banks, so they leave the departments dreadfully understaffed.


A lawyer for the homeowner in the case, James O'Connor of Fitchburg, Mass., said such problems are rampant throughout the industry.

"We have had thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of foreclosures around the country by entities that did not have the right to foreclose," O'Connor said.

The disclosure comes two days after JPMorgan said it would temporarily stop foreclosing on more than 50,000 homes so it could review documents that might contain errors. Last week, GMAC halted certain evictions and sales of foreclosed homes in 23 states to review those cases after finding procedural errors in some foreclosure affidavits.

Consumer advocates say the problems are widespread across the lending industry.
"The general level of sloppiness is pervasive around the industry," said Diane Thompson, counsel at the National Consumer Law Center.

Mortgage finance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac said Friday they're directing companies they work with that collect loan payments to follow proper procedures.

In some states, lenders can foreclose quickly on delinquent mortgage borrowers. By contrast, the 23 states in which Bank of America is delaying foreclosures use a lengthy court process. They require documents to verify information on the mortgage, including who owns it.

Those states are:

Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Vermont and Wisconsin.

Weitz - Note there is no Washington on this list. We use non-judicial foreclosure system (ie. No courts are involved)…so the paperwork is less and the errors are not as frequent. That said, the banks are completely overwhelmed by this crisis. Perhaps they should use that TARP money to hire some folks to tackle this problem....just a thought.