News: BOA Halting Foreclosure Sales In All 50 States
The Wall Street Journal reports that Bank of America (BOA) is placing a moratorium on all “foreclosure sales” across the U.S. (see below). However, BOA hasn’t halted all foreclosure proceedings (see our earlier post Major Banks Halting Foreclosures in NY?). Additionally, it appears that a BOA spokesperson is implying that BOA’s completed foreclosures were proper.
Bank of America Corp. said it is placing a moratorium on all foreclosure sales across the U.S., amid political pressure on U.S. banks to examine foreclosure-documentation problems.
The nation’s largest bank by assets is the first financial institution to stop all foreclosure sales amid revelations that the banking industry had used “robo signers,” people who sign hundreds of documents a day without reviewing their contents, when foreclosing on homes. Bank of America, J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. and Ally Financial Inc. (parent of GMAC Mortgage) last week postponed foreclosures in 23 states where a court’s approval is required to foreclosure on a home.
Bank of America also decided Friday to review the affidavits being used in foreclosure proceedings in the rest of the 50 states so the accuracy of the documents can be assessed.
Thus far “our ongoing assessment shows the basis for our past foreclosure decisions is accurate,” a Bank of America spokesman said.
The decision by Bank of America to extend its postponement to all 50 states takes effect Saturday. The bank doesn’t intend to lift the moratorium on foreclosure sales until its assessment is complete, a spokesman said. The bank hasn’t halted all foreclosure proceedings, however. If a borrower is delinquent, the bank is still issuing notices of default and pursuing efforts to modify certain mortgages, the spokesman said.
On Thursday, Rep. Edolphus Towns (D., N.Y.), chairman of the House oversight committee, became the latest lawmaker to call for a nationwide moratorium on foreclosures.
Please visit our Foreclosure category to learn more about foreclosure issues.
News: 7 lenders ordered to review their foreclosure procedures
The following is from a recent Washington Post article:
A top federal bank regulator said Thursday that he has directed seven of the nation’s largest lenders to review their foreclosure processes after learning about the widespread mishandling of homeowner evictions by the industry.
John Walsh, acting director of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, told lawmakers during a hearing on the financial regulatory overhaul enacted this summer that some lenders “clearly had deficiencies” in their system for foreclosures.
The banks contacted by regulators include J.P. Morgan Chase, which announced Wednesday that it was freezing 56,000 foreclosures after finding errors in its preparation of documents, according to OCC spokesman Kevin Mukri. Other lenders contacted include Bank of America, Citibank, HSBC, PNC Bank, U.S. Bank and Wells Fargo.
“We both want to see that they fix the processing problems but also to look to see whether there is specific harm [that has been caused] in individual cases,” Walsh said.
Revelations about widespread paperwork problems with foreclosures led Ally Financial, another major lender, to suspend evictions last week in 23 states where a court order is required to seize a property. Since then, the industry’s handling of foreclosures has come under close scrutiny from regulators, with attorneys general in several other states calling for Ally to halt foreclosures.The paperwork problems range from potentially forged documents to bank employees who never read borrowers’ files before signing off on an eviction.
In J.P. Morgan’s case, Mukri said the bank “determined that its affidavit procedures were non-compliant with foreclosure processing requirements in some states.” He added that although J.P. Morgan has fixed internal procedures, the “negative impact or harm to customers has not been determined at this point.”
“While we don’t expect our review to find that consumers were harmed, we will take appropriate action if we find any impact,” JP Morgan spokesman Tom Kelly said.
Mukri would not comment about other banks but said that the OCC has teams permanently stationed at each one and that those teams have been in close contact with senior management at the banks to ensure the reviews are completed in a timely manner.
Citibank declined to comment on the OCC’s request but said it has strong training to ensure that employees in its foreclosure group are aware that they should have personal knowledge of the information in documents that require this before signing them and that staffing levels are adequate to allow them to review them properly.
There was no immediate comment from the other banks on Thursday.
Read the entire article here.
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