In the last two years, I have listed and sold a number of short sale homes. While no two short sale transactions are the same I recently had something happen I have never seen. I would like your thoughts or suggestions on how to 1. fix this problem now and 2. make sure it never happens again.
Last year I listed a multi-unit home in Elgin, IL. Before listing the home, a buyer of mine bought one of their investment properties as a short sale. After that sale, the owners asked me to list their other two investment properties as short sales.
One of them went under contract and closed after a few delays by the bank. The second property, took longer to get under contract. Once it was under contract, we sent all the needed paperwork to the bank for approval. The attorney and I have sold two other homes as short sales with the same bank, each one taking longer and longer to get milestones completed and approval given.
We got our contract to the bank in February of this year. We got a negotiator assigned to the file and the BPO was ordered and completed. The attorney contacted the bank at least twice a month and sometimes 4 times a month to see where we were at with the approval.
A few months later, he was told the property went to sheriff’s sale and the bank is now the owner. No one was ever notified. The owners never got the registered letter, and the Loss Mitigation Department never told the attorney about the sale. Had we known about it we would have gone to court and told the judge about the contract on the property.
Now, the bank owns the property, the attorney can’t get any answers from the bank. I have been calling the bank and the REO department and left several messages and no one will call me back. I even contacted the attorney of record on the court order to ask them to help. They said they would forward the contract to the bank and that was it.
A representative of the bank (not an employee of the bank) called me and told me I had to remove the listing from the MLS but he would forward my information to the bank so they could call me, to discuss the contract on the home.
I seriously doubt the bank is going to call me. I am mad and disappointed at the bank and I feel this could have been prevented had the bank been more proactive in their inner department communications and in streamlining their short sale process.
Any thoughts or suggestions?
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