Does anyone else have a "Bank of America is Stupid" story?

[IdaBriggs]

This one is actually happening to my step-brother. His mother passed away after a very short bout of pancreatic cancer. Her house is underwater. There is no estate. He called Bank of America (the mortgage holder) to make arrangements to turn the house over to them. (He is on the title, but not the loan.)

They won't take it. They want him to try to sell it. He explained the house is several hours from his home, and he'd already turned off the utilities *and* winterized it for them *and* wasn't going to be sending them any money from the non-existent estate, so who should he turn the keys over to?

They told him it has to go through the foreclosure process.

He repeated that the homeowner WAS NOT ALIVE and the "estate" is willing to hand it over to them immediately because there is NOTHING in the estate.

They told him it has to go through the foreclosure process anyway, and he needs to put it up for sale for a minimum of three months before they can even *TALK* about taking it back.

So, now a deeply underwater home, owned by a woman who has passed away, is sitting vacant until the bank pays attorneys to foreclose on it - when the heirs / estate are trying to turn it over to them FOR FREE.

????

[Ruby the Liberal]

1. Have him call a real estate attorney in the state where the property is for a consult

They will likely talk with him for free, and only charge if they take his case and do something for him.

[IdaBriggs]

3. He already did that. The short answer was "wait it out - its not going

to cost you anything." They put it on the market, with the clear understanding by everyone involved (real estate agent and my brother) that it wasn't going to move, since it is literally worth half the current mortgage.

Its really too bad - its a nice piece of property - 25+ acres, two ponds, a horse barn, etc. Just not worth anything because its in the middle of nowhere / there are no jobs in the area. :( Great retirement property, tho, which is what his mother had bought it for about 7 years ago. Obviously, she didn't expect to pass in a "bad economy." :(

[Ruby the Liberal]

7. Ouch.

Sounds like a wonderful place with a lot of potential. Sorry to hear about this.

[Whoa_Nelly]

2. Tell him to open it up and let homeless families live in it

With a big sign "Courtesy of BofA". Neighbors will definitely make a deal out of it and will deal with BofA on his behalf.

But, seriously...:wtf: None of what he was told makes any sense. He doesn't "have to" put it up for sale..there is no estate to pay for a realtor. It can just sit there until it collects enough foreclosure notices and law enforcement comes to evict the no one who doesn't live there.
Honestly, this is one strange story. Am sorry your step-brother is going through this.

[IdaBriggs]

4. You know, I should suggest that (but he already winterized it).

And there are no appliances or anything left in it/turned off the utilities. They cleaned it up very nicely; he's a good guy. The nearest neighbors are a couple of acres away. It never occurred to anyone Bank of America would "refuse" the return!

[leeroysphitz]

5. I love Bank of America. They've stuck by my family through

thick and thin for generations.

[Ruby the Liberal]

10. You have obviously never needed anything from them but teller services

and an ATM.

Well, scratch the latter... They charge $2.50 to use a non-BoA ATM.

[IdaBriggs]

13. You are only the second person I've ever "met" who had anything

nice to say about them - and by them, I mean anyone at their corporate offices. Their local branch offices seem to have nice people in them, but personally, I can't say anything good about them (corporate) - other than the fact they *did* reverse charges on one of our mortgages where "someone" put a lock box on a house that *WASN'T* in foreclosure - and at the time, was current in its payments! Of course, they had also been mowing our lawn for a few months, which was very confusing to our lawn service people (who finally told us about it, since we assumed they were doing it, since they were being paid for it and all). In my experience, you get different answers to the same question depending on who you speak to on different days.

I told my brother just to keep calling back until he got someone sensible, but he's already wasted several hours trying that, so foreclosure seems to be the route BofA wants to go.

:)

[Hannah Bell]

22. for generations? how many? are you stockholders?

[davidinalameda]

6. rec just because I used to be a BoA customer

stupid people work there

[cherokeeprogressive]

8. One of my coworkers just sued BofA for mortgage fraud AND WON.

He won. David CAN beat Goliath after all.

http://bigbeargrizzly.net/articles/2010/12/17/news/doc4d0bb7f476ef7788925410.txt

[Ruby the Liberal]

12. "Center for Litigation and Consumer Real Estate"

OP, check out CP's link. There is a link to the CLCRE that may be able to help your step-brother.

[IdaBriggs]

14. We're in Michigan - its an interesting story in California.

I wonder if they cross state boundaries? I'll check it out further in the morning. :)

[cherokeeprogressive]

16. Let us know how it works out! n/t

[Hawkeye-X]

18. Cool story, bro.

So what happened to the house of his? Did he get to keep it? Or did BoA take it anyway?

[cherokeeprogressive]

24. He's in the process of having the loan modified. Not going to lose it. Keeps the cash settlement.

He seems a foot taller now, and much happier.

[Hawkeye-X]

26. That's good to hear. A good story like that should be spread

far and wide.. show that it is POSSIBLE to sue BoA

[MindandSoul]

9. I have not so much a "stupid" story, but a "crooked" story about BofA~

And about Citimortgage!

Those big banks are so crooked that they are outsmarting themselves and doing stupid things!

[FreakinDJ]

11. My wife's $72 overdraft charge on her ATM

I made her move her account to my bank after that

[Betty]

15. they sold my loan six or seven months ago and last month,

sent me a notice that I should be aware that they might start foreclosure proceedings soon. The loan is current with the actual servicers (who are every bit as giant assholes as BOA but that's another story). I never was late on a single payment with BOA either. They gave a number to call, which simply led to a recording telling me that my call was "very important" to them. After listening to horrible electronic music for twenty minutes, it would just hang up on me. I tried about four times to reach them at that number. I finally called another number I had, and the person said I should just "disregard" the letter. I do wonder if one of these days I will come home to find the locks have been changed. I wish I could sue the shit heads for the mental torment they cause but i know there's no chance ever prevailing. I hate that big corporations can treat people like shit and there's no recourse.

[Hawkeye-X]

20. Here's a suggestion - just to piss 'em off

Change your locks to an electronic lock. Something like this:



Neat: Biometric lock-

[tinrobot]

17. Just idiocracy with a mortgage refinance.

I'm in good shape on my mortgage, and I'm fortunate to be doing well work-wise. I simply wanted to lower my rate.

They requested the same documents more than 2-3 times, "lost" documents, and asked for more information than you can imagine over a period of about 8 months (they promised a decision in 3). Then, after all that, they declined it.

I'm still waiting for the refund on the few hundred dollars I sent them.

Next year, I'll try to refinance with a better bank (is there one?)

[Hawkeye-X]

21. Try a credit union instead of the banks

They'll manage it better.

[Foo Fighter]

19. What a weird story.

Is there some financial advantage for BoA if they can classify it as a foreclosure instead of just bank-owned or whatever? IOW, does calling it a "foreclosure" allow them to get more bailout money, etc. that they wouldn't get otherwise? I've read that the banks make a nice haul when they foreclose but I'm not sure if that's also true if they get the keys via "jingle mail" and, as in this case, the owner is deceased.

And how can they call it a foreclosure when there's no one to foreclose on?

[Hannah Bell]

23. i wouldn't be a bit surprised.

[IdaBriggs]

25. You are asking very sensible questions. I wish I knew the answers -

and so does my poor brother! Its hard enough to lose a parent, and he is having to deal with the grief of his own loss and this ... NONSENSE. It is infuriating; I'm sure she isn't the first person to pass with this type of situation - why are they making it *more* difficult for everyone involved???

[Foo Fighter]

28. And of course, you touched on the exactly why what they're doing is so

heinous. I'm sorry for your brother's loss and, as you said, losing a parent is bad enough. He shouldn't have to deal with this crap from BoA on top of it all.

The other thing is that, after a loss like that, a person often isn't thinking straight and can easily be taken advantage of. (And I don't mean that as an insult to your brother by any means. It's just the normal reaction after a loss. Actually, I'm absolutely amazed at all your brother did to winterize the house and try to take care of things with BoA. BoA should be thanking him for doing all of that, not harassing him with the foreclosure BS.)

We've probably all heard the horror stories where someone loses a parent or spouse and the credit card companies lie through their teeth and try to con them into paying off the CC bill. A lot of people don't know they're not legaly responsible for it and, since they want to do the right thing, they scrimp and save in order to pay it off. The CC bastards and Banksters can all go to hell AFAIC.

[WCIL]

27. My son went to our Bank of America branch before a trip

to Spain. He told them he would be in Spain, on which dates, and when he would return. They took everything down carefully and told him there would be no problem. Problem - they suspended his account for "unusual activity" leaving him to rely on his friends for four days while he made a series of international calls trying to straighten it out. As a "gesture of goodwill" they paid for his calls - eventually.

When he had finally had enough, he closed his accounts. The next month he got a notice that his savings account balance was too low and he was being charged a fee. He told the very nasty teller that he had closed his accounts, and she said that someone hadn't closed them "all the way", and that he would still owe the fee. She asked who had helped him that day, and he got to reply "It was you, ma'am". He was proven to be correct and didn't have to pay, and he tells everyone of his horrible experiences.

We are at a local bank now with much better service.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

29. Rent it to a needy family cheap.

Make sure the tenants are aware of the circumstances. Put the income towards the payments. It may delay foreclosure for up to a year, and give a family a place to live.

[Foo Fighter]

30. While that's a probably a great (and very noble) idea in theory,

the issue seems to be one of ownership and it would appear to me that in this case, BoA is the (unwilling) owner. Now IANAL and have never played one on TV but the fact that they have tried to stick the grieving son with responsiblities that clearly are not his sends up a huge red flag. The house is now theirs and they know it but they're bending over backwards to try to pawn the ownership of the house onto anybody but themselves.

However, should the brother collect rent in any shape whatsoever, BoA could potentially use that in court to try to to imply that he had "taken ownership" of the property and thus was responsible for it. Granted, any judge worth his salt would see through that in 2 seconds flat but given the way judges in some states rubberstamp judgements in favor of the big banks, I wouldn't take any chances.

OTOH, if some "squatters" happened to get into the house (via, for example, a patio door that wasn't as secure as people had thought), since BoA owns it, that's their problem. They failed to properly secure the property they own. Granted, they might try to go after the "squatters" in court but if no damage has been done to the property (and that's probably key), I highly doubt that any decent judge would find them at fault as, legally, BoA would be responsible for failing to secure their property. In actuality, BoA should probably be thanking the squatters as, from what I have seen, an empty house (despite all the precautions taken for winterizing) can deterioriate rather quickly whereas one that is lived-in doesn't.

Like I said, IANAL so it's best to double-check with those that are with regard to the above issues. That said, BoA sucks the big one and any jury that isn't bought-and-paid-for and has more than 2 functioning neurons among them should hang them out to dry.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

31. Actually Bof A is not until formal forclosure

If the money goes into the estate to attempt to make payments, not the survivor, he was not incurred any putative ownership interest or responsibility. He could claim that as the executor he tried to maintain whatever equity was in the house and continue to make the payments by finding tenants.

Though IANAL, I have sort been down this road a while back. There was no equity in the home but the bank seriously did not want it back. I rented it a needy family whom we knew. They had to maintain it, pay utilities etc, but the rent was a pittance and the house was technically for sale. The bank did not even try to "pierce" the estate to get to the heirs (my wife and her sister). It took them about a year to work through the foreclosure since it was tied up in the estate. We saw it as making the best of a bad situation.

[anamandujano]

33. "the bank seriously did not want it back"

I remember hearing something like that. Just did a search and found this.

"People get a notice from a bank to be out of their property in 3 days and they leave. The bank does not want your property." -- Donald Trump, CNBC, October 2007

http://www.get-your-best-mortgage-rate.com/stop-mortgage-foreclosure.html

[HEyHEY]

32. I think Assange has one coming out

[Lesleymo]

34. I hate Bank of America

We got our mortgage through them. Total nightmare. They screwed up the paperwork, wouldn't answer the phone, forgot to order an appraisal, and took so long to get us the final papers we had to call them FROM THE CLOSING to demand the documents we needed which was fun because, of course, they wouldn't answer the phone.

My boss's story is even worse. He moved his family across the country, thinking his mortgage was set to go with BoA, only to find out they hadn't even started processing his application. Plus they wouldn't answer the phone.

It's not nice to hate. But I hate Bank of America.