If you have a Bank of America/Countrywide loan, or have been involved in trying to negotiate a short sale with Bank of America, you will likely recognize what a colossal and outright impossible problem it is dealing with Bank of America and trying to get any approvals at all, much less in any reasonable period of time. At first I thought I was alone or at least an isolated case of mistakes and frustrations, but after talking with many people who have been trying to get short sale approvals out of BofA, I’ve come to realize they have developed a well-earned reputation of being totally inept, completely disorganized and unable to process or issue any approvals. The problem is so bad, there are other articles dedicated entirely to Bank of America’s short sale problems. The website can be found here.
The Entire System Collapses
I have been working for several months now to get an approval of an excellent short sale approval from Bank of America on a loan where they are in second position. The formal offer we’ve made would result in BofA receiving an unheard of high amount of money so we expected a quick turnaround and approval. All paperwork BofA was completed, submitted and confirmed recieved by BofA on September 18, 2009. We’ve been calling in several times a week now to see if we can get approval of this excellent offer, but have been told each time, “waiting for approval”, “no answer yet, check back”. Today when I called in absolute exasperation, I was told that the computer system that holds all of the shorts sale paperwork Bank of America had recieved over the last several months had crashed, taking with it all the short sale offers and documents that had been previously submitted. No back ups, no recovery, if you want your offer considered, re-submit and the process starts all over again.
I find it terribly disconcerting when the bank that has received more taxpayer dollars than any other is so inept that a collapse of this magnitude has occured. How can they be trusted to effectively manage the funds they’ve received when failures such as this occur?
For more information about Bank of America, foreclosures, short sales, deed in lieu, visit Matt Weidner at www.mattweidnerlaw.com.
What number did you call? I find it hard to believe that this is entirely true if you are the only one that knows about it. Wouldn’t it be on the news? Wouldn’t more people be talking about it? I would like to call and hear it from the horses mouth. I hope you are mistaken.
Documents in one particular file were submitted and confirmed in September. When I called last week, the assistant told me (quite candidly) that their system had collapsed. The number I called was (866) 730-2328. They claim to be the only phone center handling all of Bank of America’s Short Sales. Call them up and ask about what I’ve told you. I wouldn’t be surprised if you don’t get the same answer twice, but if someone denies it first, insist that your documents were sent in say Sept 15 and demand an explanation of why they have no record. When pushed you might get the answer I got. Let me know what you find out.
I just called. The employee stated that it was not a computer system crash. What happened was the fax machine glitched. Some packets came in complete. Some packets came in missing pages. It only effected a recent window of faxes. They still have everything that made it to the computer system. They still have all the data they have had or have ordered like BPOs etc. So no data was lost. Just random fax pages. They recommend re-faxing your submissions. I believe I spoke with the same woman you did because she said she was asked about this issue last week. So everything they already had is safe, its customer submitted faxes that should be sent again to be safe.
Thank you for blogging about this. Good luck with your bank of america short sales. Let us know if you learn something different. -Pru
My short sale was also canceled on Dec 9th due to unexplained reasons. Now I am being told that the process has to start completely over and we had a closing date set for Jan 19th! We started the previous short sale process last July.
Now, my question is what do we do about this? WHO has a big enough voice to get our little peoples cries heard?
looking for my counter offer that is suppose to be in equator. I do not see it under view counter offer
I am absolutely amazed at all the agents, owners and buyers who BofA short sale negotiators have put through HELL!! Why hasn’t any attorney or attornies joined forces to do a class action suit against this giant idiot? This bank owes us commissions, time and cost to communicate with them, as well as cost to buyers who have spent money for loan costs including but not limited to appraisals, it owes the sellers who have moved out upon word of approval from BofA the cost of renting (they would have stayed in the home if they weren’t informed that the short sale was approved) plus all the stress on all of us trying to do a job. I am a 32 year Realtor in California and I have never seen anything like this. We all need help. I will gladly give all the info including names of individuals who were assigned negotiators who did NOTHING— but they got paid unlike the rest of us. I am furious with what this bank has gotten away with on these countrywide loans they took over.
Yep- just spent a whole year trying to get 3 different short sales through B of A on my house. I bought a beautiful new house on a hill, only to find out 2 years into it needed a new roof, had mold, and oh yeah it was sliding off the hill too – So after that distress and watching the floor and walls slowly crack apart – we moved out – unable to afford the payment and living expenses for another home. There was no recourse with the builder as he went under following a comingling scheme. We applied for a short sale with B of A as our first mortgage- and had a buyer from day 1. One year later we have had 3 legitimate buyers make offers. However, Each time the buyer walked away (about 4 months into it each time) and we never reached an approval on any offer ( it only got to a negotiator once). I spent endless hours calling for the status – I could call 10 times in one day and be told 10 different stories- absolute madness! In the end, we gave up, and are now trying to negotiate a deed in lieu of foreclosure- however, the game begins again- three weeks into it and they already tell me I never applied for a deed in lieu of foreclosure – when I spent an hour getting the approval on the phone and then faxed in documents they requested. Of course no record on their end of my fax either (but I have it on my end!). The call center today said my application probably didnt get “saved” by the person who took it before- so they assured me they would save it this time. Dare I call back tommorrow and see what happened. I feel like ripping all my hair out and then some……….I have NEVER dealt with so many lazy careless people in my life. It makes me sick that they are getting any money from the govt. They are creating their own problems! And the tax payers are paying for it.
It really is staggering, and apparently is only getting worse…..
Thank you for this posting. I represent a very high end short sale here in NYC, and I had to submit the short sale package twice — the latest November 17, 2009. All my calls — it’s still not in the system.
Then at the end of December in the midst of the holidays, I received a phone call that the Sales Agent has to download the package completely AGAIN in the equator.com website.
ALL FOR DELAY. What happened to that very tough statement that came from our President in November about the banks being held accountable?
Scams lies and boondoggle. I think there is a larger conspiracy/plan at work. The banks are already reporting huge profits….read my latest post and today’s Wall Street Journal, they’re letting this slow and drag out, bleed the properties and the process slowly back into the market place to restrain losses.
Hello,
I have success with Bank of america. I closed 4 short sale year 2009 and did loan modification also. All doc. I sent was no problem. It takes about 5 months before I can closed the deal. The only issue I have now is the equator.com . my first time to use and I need someone to walk me through , but, why the borrower need to log in also and process their own doc.. If the borrowers don’t have internet access, how can they do it. Not everyone know how to use the comp. to tell you the truth. What’s going on, it just make more slow the process. Some seller will not cooperate . I would suggest that borrower need to give all doc. to the agent .
I am struggling with the system now. What most realtors are doing is managing the information required by borrower and purchaser so they can respond and upload the required information and make sure it gets there. This gets around the access and timeliness of response issue from the borrowers. Good luck and let me know how you continue to fair.
Matthew,
Since you are a lawyer (“Esq”), could you give some input / advice on how a Class Action lawsuit could be done vs. BofA for their incompetence and intransigence?
I guess I “knew” I wasn’t the only one this has been happening to, and it really doesn’t make me feel any better that so many others have nightmare stories just as bad (or even worse!) than my own…
I’m SOOOO tired of having to explain my whole situation over again from the beginning for each and every person I speak to, each and every time I call in, regarding the short sale on the property that I desperately need to be rid of.
And today?? They told me all that my package had to start over from the beginning through their “Equator” system. AFTER A FREAKIN’ YEAR, THEY ARE STARTING OVER??
The cynic inside me says they HAVE to be doing this on purpose, for some unexplainable reason. (Well, clearly it has to be about money, what else could explain such insanity to process a straight short sale, when neither the buyers nor sellers are the ones being difficult?) SO, “follow the money”… but where?? How is it possible tha BofA still is getting taxpayer bailouts, and allowed to pay bonuses to their executives?!?
Is there ANY way to do a Class Action lawsuit?
Trying to do it individually will never work — BofA surely knows that. No single person would have the ability to push through such a lawsuit… unless s/he already was independently wealthy to afford the lawyers’ ongoing fees…. (Naturally, the people with that kind of disposable income wouldn’t need to do a short sale!)
What on earth could be in it for BofA to keep this unbelievable farce process going on, instead of simply doing whatever they can to process the sales so ALL parties can get on with life??
We have had 5 short sale buyers walk since February 2009. Everything on here is true, and many individual credit ratings are being destroyed in the dead end process. Our first short sale offer was only a few thousand less then what we owed; now that the house has been itting the offers are 100K less than the balance. Class action might be the only way to fix this. -TK
a diasaster….continued collapse
the issue is that BOA signed up with a new service provider to negotiate all of its short sales in a timely manner and did not tell ANYONE!!! now all of them where reassigned Dec 9th! The system is Equator. it is all automated, hopefully once it is up and running all will be good to go….as for us tax payers, well, I guess its just the way things go, from here on out though it should get better…
Equator is far worse than the “live” negotiators.
My BOA story beats all of yours!! How about 6 months, a solid offer 25% higher than the base at sheriff’s sale, and a buyer who really, really wants the property. BOA was informed re: date of sheriff’s sale more than one month beforehand, and I continually reminded them about removing the property from the list – in the last week once by phone and 3 times by email. Less than a week before sheriff’s sale the negotiator told me he was getting a new appraisal and BPO, which would be back within 10 days.
They let it sell at the sheriff’s sale for $198,000 when they were sitting on an offer of $250,000 from my buyer. I found out that the case was closed 2 days before the sheriff’s sale. No reason was given. AND… once the case is closed they won’t talk about it – you can’t get the negotiator to return a call or an email.
Now the buyer we had is angry. He didn’t go to the sheriff’s sale because it was supposed to be pulled from the list.
Is BOA incompetent? In this case they were the processor. The loan had been sold. Is someone finding a way to get more money tax-wise or through the bail-out by taking a bigger loss than if they took the short sale?
I won’t deal with them again. Everyone’s angry and I spent about 30 hours of aggravation for nothing!
Something is very wrong all up and down the food chain of lenders and everyone involved…we may learn just what went down eventually.
We had a similar situation to most on the board. We had several offers and one buyer(Cash) who REALLY, REALLY wanted the house. BOA dragged there feet for over a year and the offers went down with time. Our realtor put up with BOA for this entire time as we did and ultimately, nothing good happened for us as the home owners, and her as the realtor. We must have faxed in the paper work 20 differnt times, as they always seem to need a new copy as well as spent literaly days on the phone. We were also told of a computer issue, Our excuse we were given was that BOA and CountryWide computer systems merged and they lost a lot of info…That is the Major Bank that we gave all that money to? End result we had 4-5 differnt offers, of which non would satisfy BOA and our home was foreclosed. The 1st offer being 25% more then they got on the court house steps. Go figure, A bank that wants to take less for a house, Somethings up. We were told, not by BOA, that the banks get more when they foreclose. Who knows if that is true or not but based on what I am reading….I cant imagine that it wouldnt be true. Bottom line….They didnt ever attempt to help in our situation.
Years after this first post the same thing is happening, I have been trying to get a great short sale through for 4 months now, still getting the same answers as the first poster did…wait 48 hours, wait 7 days, wait, wait, wait.I call everyday and am now calling the executive offices………..I actually started crying the last time I heard ‘you have to wait 48 hours.’ I have never ever dealt with such a bunch of inept prople in my life, I think they love giving the run around……….they must read excuses off a piece of paper as they all sound alike.
I haven’t checked in here for some time since I thought it was getting boring, but the last several posts are good quality so I guess I’ll add you back to my everyday bloglist. You deserve it my friend 🙂