Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Bank of America reports $15.8 billion in homeowner relief

Bank of America said Wednesday that it has now offered $15.8 billion in relief to more than 160,000 households as part of the national mortgage servicing settlement announced early this year.

Of that, about $4.75 billion was in first-lien mortgage principal forgiveness, senior vice president Eric Telljohann said on a conference call with reporters. The most relief, at $7.4 billion, remains through short sales, though he said that mix should change over the next few months.

The bank also said it is in "effective compliance" with the hundreds of new servicing rules it agreed to as part of the settlement, which includes a "single point of contact" system for homeowners behind on their mortgages. Each contact is responsible for 70 to 75 mortgages, Telljohann said in a Q&A session.


The bank's figures show marked progress from the data disclosed in the first report from mortgage settlement monitor Joseph Smith. At the end of June, Bank of America had yet to offer any principal reduction.

In the last few months, the Charlotte bank has sent letters to hundreds of thousands of homeowners offering relief.

"That momentum is not slowing down, and in fact, it's accelerating," Telljohann said.

It is unclear, however, where the bank stands in its $11.8 billion commitment as part of the settlement because not all forms of relief are given full dollar-for-dollar credit.

Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase and Ally Financial were required to file their latest progress reports Wednesday on foreclosure prevention efforts to the monitor of the mortgage settlement, Joseph Smith.

Smith, the former N.C. banking commissioner, is expected to review the filings and release a report by early next week.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

What Eric Telljohann actual title? There are thousands of SVPs there.
"It is unclear, however, where the bank stands in its $11.8 billion commitment as part of the settlement because not all forms of relief are given full dollar-for-dollar credit."
-- This is unclear because the bank does not actually know. If they did, the spin doctors who work there would release this information in order to help their reputation.

Anonymous said...

Anon, he's a a credit loss mitigation strategies executive. And yes, you are correct that the bank does not know where it stands, either.

Gerald Harris said...

There are alot of internal moving parts when it comes to processing short sales. Lenders would be more inline if they would consider rewriting the notes of those who are in foreclosure. This way everyone wins. The owner keeps the house, no foreclosure, the lender keeps the note intact and doesn't have to file foreclosure. Job's would be plentiful and no evictions would happen. Just rewrite mortgage notes. It's cheaper. And more effective in the long run

Anonymous said...

I'm sorry - they should have never bought a house they couldn't afford to begin with. I'm tired of paying for all of these people and their debt. I bought I house I could afford. I make my payments. I lost my job too - and STILL paid my bills. People need to stop getting all these bailouts and free rides.

CJ said...

Anonymous - The individuals under this program are not receiving relief from tax payers - the funds are coming from Bank of America.

Anonymous said...

not from taxpayers? think about where this money is coming from. BAC customers, employees, soon to be laid off employees, business partners, subcontractors, investors in bac stock and related industry- via your 401K's, IRA's, mutual funds, etc. So BAC did things so evil as to need 16 billion in penalty and no one goes to jail? reallocation of wealth? Obamahood, steals from the responsible, gives to the irresponsible.

Anonymous said...

What BoA has not disclosed is the schemes and scams they in turn used to recoup some of their losses.I know first hand.They offered me a reduced mortgage payment for a period of 6 months which I naively agreed too.Well,THEY continued beyond the 6 months after I called and asked too resume normal payments.Tehy ran me thru a room of smoke and mirrors and yet again I trusted them.After all was said and done,they sent me a bill for over 6G and a letter with intent to begin foreclosure processing.This is just the tip of the iceberg but it's the gist of it.These "titans" are NNNOOOTTT to be trusted with all thier figures and quotes.At the end of the day,they are in it for themselves and will find a way to prevail,regardless of regs. and restrictions placed on them by anyone up to and including Uncle Sam!!!

Anonymous said...

@Anonymous circa 9:58:

Did you read the contracts you signed? While no one can defend the level of customer service as being satisfactory for any of these big lenders with too many customers to serve with too-few, under-qualified employees, I am willing to bet that every step they took in the management of your delinquent mortgage was according to terms of the contract that was signed. Whether you got adequate customer service and the associated reconsideration and adjustments aside, you seem to imply that Bank of America ignored the terms of the contract you signed and flagrantly treated you otherwise. If that were true, you wouldn't be here, you'd have an attorney and you'd have a bulletproof case and you'd be getting reimbursed over what you were wrongly billed. But here you are.

Anonymous said...

@9:58
summary: I bought a house I couldn't afford and I agreed to pay the bill of $x. Then I stopped paying the bill and the bank gave me a reduced payment for six months and then resumed the original agreed upon payments and that makes them evil because they gave me break for 6 months instead of forever...