Lots of folks in Bridgeport with mortgage issues. State Attorney General George Jepsen is urging America’s largest bank to do more. From Jepsen:
ATTORNEY GENERAL GEORGE JEPSEN
BANK OF AMERICA FAILING TO MEET NEEDS OF DISTRESSED BORROWERS IN CONNECTICUT
HARTFORD –Attorney General George Jepsen said Wednesday that Bank of America Corp. needs to devote more resources to help Connecticut borrowers having trouble paying their mortgages or seeking loan modifications.
“I express these concerns on behalf of the thousands of distressed Connecticut borrowers who continue to experience significant difficulties due to Bank of America’s failure to devote adequate resources to loss mitigation,” Jepsen wrote to Brian T. Moynihan, president and chief executive officer of Bank of America. “Bank of America can and should do more.”
“Given that Bank of America is apparently poised to lift its moratorium on Connecticut foreclosures, I do not see that it has any credible plan to deal with the inevitable increase in … requests” from borrowers seeking loan modifications, Jepsen wrote. The letter followed a recent meeting with bank representatives.
The Office of the Attorney General, the state Department of Banking and the non-profit Connecticut Fair Housing Center continue to receive “numerous complaints” from consumers whose loans are serviced by the bank, Jepsen said. Those complaints include: the bank losing documents repeatedly; lack of communication; conflicting and contradictory instructions from bank employees; receiving foreclosure notices at the same time the borrower is under consideration for a loan modification; failure to honor a loan modification the bank has already agreed to, and lack of any single employee who is familiar with a customer’s file.
“Despite having had more than two years to ‘right-size’ your staff and establish effective procedures and systems, Bank of American has so far not prevented even the most common consumer complaints,” Jepsen wrote.
Jepsen said he was told the bank plans to establish 40 new customer assistance centers nationwide, including one in Dedham, Mass. to serve New England. Establishing one center staffed by a dozen people to cover all of New England is simply not enough, Jepsen wrote. Bank of America is the largest bank in New England.
Nor is it enough for the bank to change its customer service policies, Jepsen said. Bank of America needs to bolster its resources “so that distressed Connecticut borrowers receive fair and honest treatment,” he wrote.
Jepsen is a member of the Executive Committee of the National Association of Attorneys General multistate task force which is seeking to hold major loan servicers, including Bank of America, accountable for the unfair and deceptive default servicing practices they have engaged in across the country.
Tell me Mr. Jepsen, who appointed you to dictate the behavior of a private company that entered into contractual agreements with adults? These adults must have read the contract and understood the concepts. If these people were illiterate or mentally deficient then the contract is null and void. Under the premise these people are not the following dumb and dumber then they should be held to the standards all people are held to. Why Jepsen thinks it is his responsibility or his cause to void legal contracts can only be told by a megalomaniac. Therefore the question could be answered by his predecessor, Blumenthal.
At least we got rid of Chris Dodd …
Clearly those of you defending BoA have never tried to deal with a bank over any mortgage issue. My now wife had to try to deal with a competitor to BoA over such an issue as she tried to sell a house, there is often no PERSON you can talk to, the paperwork can be confusing and/or overwhelming, and the documentation demanded is demeaning.
Charlie, you very clearly misunderstand. There are people who through no fault of their own have lost their jobs and can no longer make payments. Sometimes the payments are based on a valuation of a home which is 20% or more higher than what the house could be sold for. Yes, there is a contract, but with the volume of foreclosures (nationwide, and in Connecticut), prices are depressed.
In 2008, I sold a house in Bridgeport for about half of what it could have been sold for in 2006. Whose fault was that? Mine? I think not! The only good news for me is I had owned the house for long enough I was not “upside down” on it.
It seems Jepsen is both following in the footsteps of his predecessor and is trying to help citizens in Connecticut. Good move.
NOLA:
I BELIEVE YOU ARE THE EXCEPTION RATHER THAN THE RULE. Yes it sucks when you are upside down in a mortgage. I sold a house in Old Greenwich for a value I would have never financed. The reason was people from NYC wanted a zip code in Greenwich, so they bid up the price to an outrageous value. A house value is only dependent on what people will pay for it. I blame the housing bubble on those idiots from Wall Street who thought of houses like stock.
Bank of America is a good start but not the end. My current mortgage is with Chase Bank & these pricks are more inflexible than a shylock. The exorbitant charges would delight a loan shark in a back alley. The Federal Government bailed out the banking institutions with the intent of trickling down some relief to homeowners. To increase profit they are refusing to renegotiate terms with borrowers. I feel a state & national investigation is called for to expose these problems.
You would probably get a better deal from a loan shark than from your bank. These pariahs gouge the people at an outrageous rate that the federal government will condone if uncontested by the electorate. This shit needs to stop. People are losing their nest egg to insure their futures. Politicians are exploiting this in favor of the Banking Industry. This country had better wake up or we will become a third-world country like Bangladesh. This nation has the privilege of deciding its future. We had better wake the fuck up and smell the roses or the lack thereof.
*** ABOUT TIME, NOW LET’S SEE SOME ACTION! ***