Bank Of America, Do You Care About Veterans?
Negative blog posts aren't our style, but there comes a time when you pull out the biggest stick you've got in your arsenal, and it's social media. I've tried phone calls to the people at my immediate level and frankly they just don't seem to care about communicating to this REALTOR(R). My client is a friend of mine for the last 20 years. An Air Force veteran with a partial disability in need of a VA loan.
You know how hard it is to find a VA eligible home that is mostly move in ready for under $75,000 in our area? We'll it's not easy. We've been working on finding a home for about a year. LOTS of homes shown. Offers written and declined because of bidding wars. A 7 month wait on a short sale offer that the bank chose to foreclose rather than negotiate.
And finally, we find a home that works. A Freddie Mac foreclosure. Good neighborhood, good price, just big enough to suit Jim and his family. We don't mess around, full price and a smidge more, and it's ours (or so we think).
Now normally this is where you expect things to become routine. Home inspection we can live with. Only one VA required repair. Fortunately the investor approves the repair and we scramble to get it finished. But closing November 16th? Not happening because Bank of America isn't done yet. We file an extension until November 30th. SURELY this will be long enough? The contract was originally accepted on October 5th.
And it's not like we hadn't been communicating with Bank of America and making it clear we need to get the loan approved and closing scheduled! So since the 16th doesn't happen we target the day before Thanksgiving....except the servicer goes on vacation and no one is really covering. You know, they're short staffed and overworked and all that....
Messages continue to be left to the processor and the manager, but no calls back to me.
So now Thanksgiving has come and gone, and we're trying to get cleared by the end of this week to meet the end of the Nov. 30th extension deadline. Communication is still horrendous. Finally a call Thursday afternoon and the package is in for final underwriting! MAYBE this can still happen the next day??
And then the crickets start chirping again. More ignored voicemails and emails. We're now almost EIGHT weeks after contract acceptance and STILL don't have loan approval.
And I finally reach the manager this afternoon and get the "It's not our job to communicate to you as the agent, it's the sales person's job, and we're overworked and understaffed and we can't provide you a closing date yet".
SERIOUSLY???? Then if you're NOT the right person for me to talk to, WHY didn't someone tell me that? 60 seconds to reply and give me another name wasn't available? And you think the seller cares that you're overworked and understaffed?
I'll provide that answer: WE HAVE UNTIL DECEMBER 14th TO CLOSE THIS DEAL OR MY AIR FORCE VETERAN LOSES THIS HOME!!! I was fortunate to talk the rep out of charging my buyer a per diem late fee since we're now on our 2nd extension, but he made it QUITE clear. THERE WILL BE NO MORE EXTENSIONS!!!
So Bank of America, if you're out there, I need you to bring your "A" game. NO MORE EXCUSES. We need you to get this done PRONTO! Because at this point, I find it highly ironic that a bank with the name AMERICA in it doesn't seem to care about getting Jim the Air Force veteran a HOME of his own!!
You want to talk details, I'm happy to provide them:
Email: Liz@LizSpear.com or call my cell: 513-520-5305. Let's chat, shall we?
Regards,
Bill
Comments(28)