Bank of America's distressed homeowner events
We just had ours last weekend. BofA has been touring the country hitting up major cities to provide a place for in-trouble homeowners to meet with loan counselors. Here's our experience so others can decide if it's worth it or a waste of time....
Our Background:
We have the 5 year ARM special from Countrywide circa 2004. We are both currently underemployed for years, have over $100K of mostly CC debt for business purchases stemming from banks not offering enough lines of credit back around 2000. We are on food stamps, have no health insurance, children's healthcare is paid by the state. And as of August, we had to stop paying on CCs and started to go late on our mortgages. Tried HAMP back in October, denied Dec 1 due to missing paperwork, tried again in Dec and denied in Feb with claim we were already denied Dec 1 due to the missing paperwork. We were able to creatively keep extending the 60 day late mark until Feb when we had enough of a further dip in income to have to stop paying and go past that 90 day mark. In April we asked about HAFA program, were sent an appraiser, sent a selling price that was $60K over what comparable homes are selling for in the area, we refused to sign based on advice of attorney and real estate agents, the due date for HAFA to be signed passed, and now we are just in a holding pattern again with no hint of acceleration.
BofA Outreach Event:
BofA sent us a packet (did not have to request it) stating the documents we would need for a loan officer to review our loan and work on it. We did not bother as we are very far behind at this point and we've done research to indicate that BofA is very unlikely to help homeowners this far behind on payments (and this bad off on hardship). We just brought our statements and the historical docs related to our previous attempts. BofA wants homeowners to set a time and we didn't do that either.
At registration, you have to provide the loan number in order to be checked in and issued a numbered card stapled to a folder. Turns out it doesn't matter if you don't have an appointment. A woman (I will call her Elderly Barbie) hovered during check in and it turned out she was the equivalent of a Wal-mart greeter for BofA. Her job is to walk people from check-in to 75 feet away to a curtained waiting area for an introductory workshop. On the way we engaged Elderly Barbie in conversation a little aggressively and she revealed that she is formerly a real estate agent and she offered sympathy for all our plight while trying very hard to steer us into the workshop and be done with us. She claimed the events are a great success and lots of people are being helped, but she offered no definition of what she calls "success." Elderly Barbie struck us as being someone whose job is to offer support without admitting BofA wrongdoing (though we tried) and to kind of defuse and talk agitated homeowners down and get them to hop on the funhouse ride. Also, she carried a digital camera in her shirt pocket with the lens exposed.
The workshop waiting area was roughly 30 chairs positioned to view a large screen in the background. All surrounded by convention center style curtains. There are two workshop areas so people can wait in one while another is going. When the workshop started 10 minutes later, an attractive young black woman came out to present who I like to call "AA Barbie." AA Barbie started to tell us first that the workshop is not the place to talk about personal situations, that's for the loan officer. Then she laid out a timeline we could expect that day. Half hour for workshop, then roughly an hour in a "holding area" (their name for it) waiting for our number to be called, then meeting with a loan officer who will only be able to work with us if we have the right requested documents, then IF we are part of the so-called 25% that statistically do have all the documents, we would expect to wait another hour in a different holding area while the underwriter reviews the application, then receive a yes or no and new payment structure that very day or proceed to discussion of options to get out of the home. Then she proceeded to tell us that most people do not have the right documents at the event and would have to get those at home, and if they fax them in, they could expect an answer 7-10 business days after all proper documents are received. And she explicitly stated that the documents must be in the right format (no prints of online bank statements was provided as an example) and they must all be up to date within the last 60 days. Then AA Barbie told us about the difference between soft declines and hard declines. A soft decline is when a loan mod is denied due to missing documents. A hard decline is when a loan mod is declined based on the homeowner simply not having a enough income to make the mod possible (and where we would most likely fall in our case were we to bother trying). The purpose of the event is for people to either get approved for a loan mod or get hard declined so that other "options" can be discussed. Then AA Barbie told us about the "dignified exit" -- in other words a homeowner gets a hard decline and then it's time to think about deed-in-lieu, short sale, possibly something else I can't remember, but not the "undignified" foreclosure in other words. She also told us that there are lots of different loan mods, all based on who the investor of the loan is. So the underwriter will write a mod differently for Countrywide customers from the underwriter handling FHA customers and so on.
Once the workshop was done, AA Barbie walked the group over to the holding area, an area of roughly 70 chairs in rows surrounded by semi open curtains. In the holding area there is a white board where the called numbers are written down, so if a homeowner steps out to use the facilities, they can check the white board to see if the number is called. It took roughly an hour for our number to be called and we went over to the loan officer, a very precisely painted looking young blonde woman I'll call "Plastic Barbie." Plastic Barbie has, for lack of a more poetic phrasing, a bad customer service attitude. She immediately asked for paperwork so she could get started and did not like it when we told her we didn't fill it out. We told Plastic Barbie about our previous attempts at HAMP and we would like her to research it and tell us why we were denied the second time. She tapped away at her laptop, said it looked like there were some "disconnects," said she could get another loan mod going if we have the documents. My spouse argued with her a little bit about this, all she would say is that she's here to be the person who can work with us today if we have the documents, and what do we expect to accomplish if we don't have anything filled out? I then asked her, given our situation and the fact that BofA has been doing these events for months, what does she think our chances would realistically be? Just a guess, any guess will do. She said she couldn't answer that and she can't speak for what anyone else has done then asked what we wanted to do. We didn't have an answer that satisfied her (my spouse wanted to pursue questioning further about the supposed missing documents of previous declines) and she shut down and tapped away quietly for a couple minutes trying to look like she was searching. Then a man walked over and asked what the trouble is. My spouse (the more verbally confrontational person) told this supervisor type that we have wanted to talk to someone in person about our situation for months and this is what we are doing. That we are wanting to know exactly why we were denied twice for missing paperwork due to something we don't even pay when the checklist states to provide it "if" we pay it with no mention of special forms to indicate we don't. That they should have no problem doing anything based off former paperwork already provided multiple times as nothing has changed meaningfully in our situation. Then the supervisor pulled a card out of his pocket for BofA CAC office, a place set up for homeowners to be able to talk in person about their loans and work out mods or other actions. Turns out the BofA CAC was only opened April 1 to preempt our governor signing into law effective April 15 that home mortgage servicers MUST provide in state offices for people to be able to discuss and work on their loans with an officer in person. We thanked the supervisor for the card and left as there was no point in continuing further.
Take Away Analysis of the Event:
The key here was described in the workshop discussion of soft decline vs. hard decline. It is my assumption that these events have an underlying motive for BofA to figure out who they can hard decline that day so BofA can figure out how to get the homeowner out of that home permanently as fast as possible. The concept of actually modifying loans at all is a joke because they state that they have numerous ways of claiming that documents are missing or not in the right format. Also a homeowner can keep sending loan mods indefinitely with soft decline as the result. This, I suspect, is done when the homeowner has enough of a household income to not be hard declined and is done with the purpose of making homeowners frustrated so they give up and either keep the original terms or walk away from the house. Additionally, the agents at every step of the way are very careful to not admit BofA wrongdoing. It's all about damage control. Provide sympathy in a limited way without admitting any actual wrongdoing on the part of BofA.
In summation, if you have a mod in process and BofA invites you to the event, be wary. Only go if you are certain your household income gets you out of the hard decline reasoning and then it *might* be useful as you could get an answer that day. If you are far behind like us with little income, it will be hard to get anyone to slip up and open up the opportunity for a lawsuit down the road (although I think we already have that anyway) and will not only be a waste of time but can also have the adverse effect of speeding up the acceleration to foreclosure. But if it emotionally helps you to have someone to complain at in person, go ahead and go (we felt better for a good complaining).
Our Background:
We have the 5 year ARM special from Countrywide circa 2004. We are both currently underemployed for years, have over $100K of mostly CC debt for business purchases stemming from banks not offering enough lines of credit back around 2000. We are on food stamps, have no health insurance, children's healthcare is paid by the state. And as of August, we had to stop paying on CCs and started to go late on our mortgages. Tried HAMP back in October, denied Dec 1 due to missing paperwork, tried again in Dec and denied in Feb with claim we were already denied Dec 1 due to the missing paperwork. We were able to creatively keep extending the 60 day late mark until Feb when we had enough of a further dip in income to have to stop paying and go past that 90 day mark. In April we asked about HAFA program, were sent an appraiser, sent a selling price that was $60K over what comparable homes are selling for in the area, we refused to sign based on advice of attorney and real estate agents, the due date for HAFA to be signed passed, and now we are just in a holding pattern again with no hint of acceleration.
BofA Outreach Event:
BofA sent us a packet (did not have to request it) stating the documents we would need for a loan officer to review our loan and work on it. We did not bother as we are very far behind at this point and we've done research to indicate that BofA is very unlikely to help homeowners this far behind on payments (and this bad off on hardship). We just brought our statements and the historical docs related to our previous attempts. BofA wants homeowners to set a time and we didn't do that either.
At registration, you have to provide the loan number in order to be checked in and issued a numbered card stapled to a folder. Turns out it doesn't matter if you don't have an appointment. A woman (I will call her Elderly Barbie) hovered during check in and it turned out she was the equivalent of a Wal-mart greeter for BofA. Her job is to walk people from check-in to 75 feet away to a curtained waiting area for an introductory workshop. On the way we engaged Elderly Barbie in conversation a little aggressively and she revealed that she is formerly a real estate agent and she offered sympathy for all our plight while trying very hard to steer us into the workshop and be done with us. She claimed the events are a great success and lots of people are being helped, but she offered no definition of what she calls "success." Elderly Barbie struck us as being someone whose job is to offer support without admitting BofA wrongdoing (though we tried) and to kind of defuse and talk agitated homeowners down and get them to hop on the funhouse ride. Also, she carried a digital camera in her shirt pocket with the lens exposed.
The workshop waiting area was roughly 30 chairs positioned to view a large screen in the background. All surrounded by convention center style curtains. There are two workshop areas so people can wait in one while another is going. When the workshop started 10 minutes later, an attractive young black woman came out to present who I like to call "AA Barbie." AA Barbie started to tell us first that the workshop is not the place to talk about personal situations, that's for the loan officer. Then she laid out a timeline we could expect that day. Half hour for workshop, then roughly an hour in a "holding area" (their name for it) waiting for our number to be called, then meeting with a loan officer who will only be able to work with us if we have the right requested documents, then IF we are part of the so-called 25% that statistically do have all the documents, we would expect to wait another hour in a different holding area while the underwriter reviews the application, then receive a yes or no and new payment structure that very day or proceed to discussion of options to get out of the home. Then she proceeded to tell us that most people do not have the right documents at the event and would have to get those at home, and if they fax them in, they could expect an answer 7-10 business days after all proper documents are received. And she explicitly stated that the documents must be in the right format (no prints of online bank statements was provided as an example) and they must all be up to date within the last 60 days. Then AA Barbie told us about the difference between soft declines and hard declines. A soft decline is when a loan mod is denied due to missing documents. A hard decline is when a loan mod is declined based on the homeowner simply not having a enough income to make the mod possible (and where we would most likely fall in our case were we to bother trying). The purpose of the event is for people to either get approved for a loan mod or get hard declined so that other "options" can be discussed. Then AA Barbie told us about the "dignified exit" -- in other words a homeowner gets a hard decline and then it's time to think about deed-in-lieu, short sale, possibly something else I can't remember, but not the "undignified" foreclosure in other words. She also told us that there are lots of different loan mods, all based on who the investor of the loan is. So the underwriter will write a mod differently for Countrywide customers from the underwriter handling FHA customers and so on.
Once the workshop was done, AA Barbie walked the group over to the holding area, an area of roughly 70 chairs in rows surrounded by semi open curtains. In the holding area there is a white board where the called numbers are written down, so if a homeowner steps out to use the facilities, they can check the white board to see if the number is called. It took roughly an hour for our number to be called and we went over to the loan officer, a very precisely painted looking young blonde woman I'll call "Plastic Barbie." Plastic Barbie has, for lack of a more poetic phrasing, a bad customer service attitude. She immediately asked for paperwork so she could get started and did not like it when we told her we didn't fill it out. We told Plastic Barbie about our previous attempts at HAMP and we would like her to research it and tell us why we were denied the second time. She tapped away at her laptop, said it looked like there were some "disconnects," said she could get another loan mod going if we have the documents. My spouse argued with her a little bit about this, all she would say is that she's here to be the person who can work with us today if we have the documents, and what do we expect to accomplish if we don't have anything filled out? I then asked her, given our situation and the fact that BofA has been doing these events for months, what does she think our chances would realistically be? Just a guess, any guess will do. She said she couldn't answer that and she can't speak for what anyone else has done then asked what we wanted to do. We didn't have an answer that satisfied her (my spouse wanted to pursue questioning further about the supposed missing documents of previous declines) and she shut down and tapped away quietly for a couple minutes trying to look like she was searching. Then a man walked over and asked what the trouble is. My spouse (the more verbally confrontational person) told this supervisor type that we have wanted to talk to someone in person about our situation for months and this is what we are doing. That we are wanting to know exactly why we were denied twice for missing paperwork due to something we don't even pay when the checklist states to provide it "if" we pay it with no mention of special forms to indicate we don't. That they should have no problem doing anything based off former paperwork already provided multiple times as nothing has changed meaningfully in our situation. Then the supervisor pulled a card out of his pocket for BofA CAC office, a place set up for homeowners to be able to talk in person about their loans and work out mods or other actions. Turns out the BofA CAC was only opened April 1 to preempt our governor signing into law effective April 15 that home mortgage servicers MUST provide in state offices for people to be able to discuss and work on their loans with an officer in person. We thanked the supervisor for the card and left as there was no point in continuing further.
Take Away Analysis of the Event:
The key here was described in the workshop discussion of soft decline vs. hard decline. It is my assumption that these events have an underlying motive for BofA to figure out who they can hard decline that day so BofA can figure out how to get the homeowner out of that home permanently as fast as possible. The concept of actually modifying loans at all is a joke because they state that they have numerous ways of claiming that documents are missing or not in the right format. Also a homeowner can keep sending loan mods indefinitely with soft decline as the result. This, I suspect, is done when the homeowner has enough of a household income to not be hard declined and is done with the purpose of making homeowners frustrated so they give up and either keep the original terms or walk away from the house. Additionally, the agents at every step of the way are very careful to not admit BofA wrongdoing. It's all about damage control. Provide sympathy in a limited way without admitting any actual wrongdoing on the part of BofA.
In summation, if you have a mod in process and BofA invites you to the event, be wary. Only go if you are certain your household income gets you out of the hard decline reasoning and then it *might* be useful as you could get an answer that day. If you are far behind like us with little income, it will be hard to get anyone to slip up and open up the opportunity for a lawsuit down the road (although I think we already have that anyway) and will not only be a waste of time but can also have the adverse effect of speeding up the acceleration to foreclosure. But if it emotionally helps you to have someone to complain at in person, go ahead and go (we felt better for a good complaining).
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