Guidelines To Be Stupid

This gotta (screw proper English) be the longest short sale in history. Short sale since 2010. All because of a dynamite combination of Bank of America servicing an FHA loan, where the strict FHA guidelines meet the most incompetent people at Bank of America.

From the first moment you hit the wall. There is a notation on the case, and the Bank refuses even to talk about it. You have to square it with Legal. The attorney tries to deal with legal, but they demand the Seller call them. The Seller calls, finally gets through. They verify that she is she, and then tell her they can’t discuss it with her.

With whom do they need to discuss it?

- With the Seller.

- I am the Seller

- We know, but we do not have the written authorization to speak to you.

- Authorization from whom?

- From the Seller

At some initial naïve point the Seller signed for Loan Modification, and it automatically placed her with some department. She was rejected, then moved out of the house, but the notation stays and nobody can touch the file until it is there. It is difficult to remove it, and then, after few months this notation automatically comes back, and suddenly everybody stop and tell you they can’t even touch it.

Because it is an FHA loan, it first has to go to Loan Modification, even when the Seller does not reside there, then they say she is ineligible, then they would allow Short sale. Takes forever to get to the approval time, and this is when they would do the appraisal, and yes, things are changing, so they would counter, the Buyer, pissed off by months of waiting and lost opportunities, would walk away.

Next contract submitted at what the Bank countered. But it is a new day, new deal, everything starting from scratch, loan modification, rejection, months of working, then new appraisal, new counter, buyer walks away…

We did this several times, still hoping that market stays without change and the next appraisal comes at the same number and we’d be able to save this home from foreclosure.

Last contract we have is from September 2014. It took several months just to get BoA open the case in Equator. For way over a month they simply could not open the Equator even after they said they would. Something was not working on their end , a software glitch, which huge Bank of America could not fix for weeks… Tons of documents, endless addenda and requests, including a request to change the listing price three times in the last month and a half. First to $140K, then to $139,900, and then to … $140K again…

And few days ago the geniuses at BoA rejected the Short Sale. They called it fraud.

Why? The Buyer is originally from Russia, and his last name has two variants of spelling. If you look at the way it is written in Russian, it would be Efimov. If you write it in English the way it sounds, it is Yefimov (name changed). The Buyer signed some of the addenda as Efimov, and some as Yefimov. Well, Russian and English are two different languages, and there is often no direct match, so yes, this is not unusual at all.

But try to explain it to geniuses at Bank of America. They claim they have guidelines from FHA for everything. Do they have the guidelines from FHA to be stupid? The very bank, where they have plenty of Russian employees, and all they would need is to show them the 2 variants, and every Russian would say that this is the same name.

The bank asked for the addendum to address the spelling inconsistency. We complied. The bank asked for the driver license and SS card. We provided both, and on both of these documents, the name is Yefimov, the same as it appears on the contract.

I do not want to get into Guinness Book of records with the longest short sale. I want this short sale closed. Our negotiator contacted HUD and told them the story. They agreed with her, said it absolutely shouldn’t have taken that long, and said they understand the name variations… And said they would talk to Bank of America.

Would you, guys, at Bank of America, listen?

I understand that BoA is mostly concerned with CYA…

I believe the whole bank is one this huge A from this CYA…

Image by vincent desjardins via Flickr.com (Modified)