Only 8.5 Billion?

This just in, courtesy of the Associated Press and National Public Radio:

Bank of America and its Countrywide unit will pay $8.5 billion to settle claims that the lenders sold poor-quality mortgage-backed securities that went sour when the housing market collapsed.
The Charlotte, N.C., bank says the settlement with 22 investors is subject to court approval and covers 530 trusts with original principal balance of $424 billion.
As a result of the settlement, Bank of America put its second-quarter loss at $8.6 billion to $9.1 billion. Excluding the settlement and other charges, the bank expects to post a quarterly loss of $3.2 billion to $3.7 billion.
Shares of Bank of America Corp. jumped 4 percent before the market opened, with investors happy that the bank can put very big uncertainty behind it.

All I have to say about this is.....unfortunately, while this court decision means Bank of America is being forced to be held accountable for some of their gross negligences, they're still not being held accountable to THEIR CLIENTS. They're only being held accountable at this point to the big spenders (like Freddie Mac and Freddie Mae) who backed the loans. 

By the way, according to NPR, 8.5 billion is about equal to the amount of the profit Bank of America would've otherwise pocketed this year. Poor, poor Bank of America. Sure hope you can still make your mortgage payments this year.

Does Bank of America N.A. stand for Bank of America - NOT ACCOUNTABLE?

Before I tell you what happened after I sat down and wrote a letter to the Oregon Attorney General's office, let me tell you what happened on Thursday and Friday, just to give you a snippet of how the crap gets flung around when somebody screws up a foreclosure in a major way.
Thank goodness I keep notes.
1. Real estate agent Patti Denton showed up a 2nd time, this time trying to convince Margaret's brother to quit paying his meager rent of $300 (which covers about half of the mortgage payment) to Margaret, and instead sign a rental agreement with Fannie Mae, and start paying them, still convinced that Fannie Mae owned the home. So Fannie Mae owns the mortgage?
2. Right about this time, Bank of America generated a letter informing Margaret that from now on, they'd like her to make her mortgage payments out to Bank of America N.A. instead of B.A.C. servicing. So Bank of America owns the mortgage?
3. Then, Bank of America sent me an email filled with factual errors that led them to believe Fannie Mae has the home, and that Margaret's only course of action was to follow the instructions on how to either move out or begin renting her home from Fannie Mae. So Fannie Mae owns the mortgage?!
I corrected the errors...so many of them...and sent the email back, urging BofA to dig a little deeper, actually investigate the issue instead of barely glancing at the notes and making some pretty big, bold statements based on very little actual information, and then get back to me.
4. Fannie Mae generated a letter on Friday, "Pleased" to let me know that the title is still in Fannie Mae's name, and therefore they own it. OK, so you all seem pretty convinced that Fannie Mae owns this mortgage.
5. Finally, on that same day, Friday, I received another email back from Bank of America finally admitting that yes indeedy, they do own it, and they will work in earnest to get a reinstatement quote to me on Monday. So Bank of America owns the mortgage?!?!?!
Could you people just sit down together, hash this out and then get back to us?

A Little Behind The Times

A real estate agent from Prudential-Seaboard Realty showed up at my mother-in-law's home the other day, with a "Know Your Options" notice that she taped onto the door and then high tailed it outta there. A Know Your Options notice is when Fannie Mae has foreclosed on a home, and decides its time to capitalize on their move. So they hire what is called an Asset Management company, which in turn subcontracts out to an unfortunate real estate agent like Patti Denton in Coos Bay, Oregon to do their dirty work.
Now I don't blame poor Patti. She's probably in a situation where she can't sell a house to save her life in this awful market, but if you can capitalize in kicking people out of their homes, cleaning up the mess, changing the locks and selling it for Fannie Mae, well...at least you can eat.
Well, I do blame Patti a little bit. But it's only because she's a faithful servant, carrying out her ill-informed marching orders from what she claims to be Fannie Mae.
So Patti came to the home...and then of course the shit hit the fan.
Because Fannie Mae doesn't own this property.
If you're a follower of this blog, then you may remember that last August, Fannie Mae investigated the improper foreclosure on my mother-in-law's home, deemed that it was huge bungle on Bank of America's part, and approved a recision of the foreclosure. They gave it back to Bank of America, and closed it out of their system.
Then for two months I worked with Bank of America to try to get them to reinstate the mortgage, so that my mother-in-law could start giving them money every month again.
In November, right after BofA halted foreclosures nationally, they quit returning my phone calls. I waited patiently for another 7 months. During that time we received no calls, no correspondence, no nuthin' from nobody. Until Patti showed up on Monday, June 6, 2011.
She had a document prepared one year ago showing that the home was in the hands of Fannie Mae. I told her she was behind the times, and had old, outdated info. She told me to prove it. I told her Bank of America refused, because in their opinion, the actual customer is considered 'a third party' and they don't have to share that information.
I called Fannie Mae, asking for proof. They said they'd open another investigation. They told me that their system showed the home had been transferred back to Bank of America. So where did this real estate agent really get her marching orders from? In our initial conversation, the real estate agent had given me a phone number for her supposed supervisor, and a name: Jeffrey Aiken. She said he was an attorney. I called the number, it was disconnected. The man I spoke to at Fannie Mae said I really needed to get in touch with the Oregon Attorney General's office.
And that's when things got really interesting, real quick-like.
Hey, I gotta go take a call from the Attorney General's Chief of Staff.