Like you, we paid our mortgage in full and on time - we have good credit and scores. We live within our means. 2008 took all of that and threw it in our faces when the housing and banking industry tanked. Our house worth so much less, and the city devaluated assessments but kept raising property taxes. My family and yours felt trapped and no new rules to fix failed old rules. THEN CAME HARPII refinance. HARPII was signed by President Obama in October of 2011 by Executive Order. Quoting Dan Green, "... Then, in 2012, HARP was expanded. Dubbed Harp 2.0, all loan-to-value requirements were suddenly waived, as were proof of income requirements; proof of asset requirements; minimum credit score requirements; and, as a host of other qualifiers. In many cases, HARP 2.0 won't even ask for a home appraisal."
My husband and I felt like kids waiting for the best Christmas ever - we dreamed of this refinance ever since the crash. March 2012 - Bank of America was where our loan was being serviced. We would have been foolish not to see what they offered as they already had all the information by us being with them since they snapped it up from Countrywide back in 2007. We started working with a GoTo Loan Officer, and some in-house offers and price breaks in interest and lower payment that were beating everything else. We were promised HARPII! After a lot discussions with this officer, and educating ourselves about HARPII under Bank Of America's terms - we signed filled out the application with the BAC loan officer in May. Then the 'complications' began. Information that we'd offered, and was refused as not needed or included in the loan application ... became needed. We became lost in a sea of underwriting departments and new people tacking themselves onto our loan process.
Bank of America led my husband and I on a 90 day waste of time and energy all through spring and summer 2012. BAC blew the 90 deadline, they breeched in contract terms as well as loan product we sought with them well before the 90 day terms.
Because I did not trust BAC or any other TARP bank, I made many detailed email trails, starting with pre-contract signing back in March. BAC replied and kept adding more persons in various departments in their replies. I saved EVERYTHING. There are emails between BAC, our Closing vendor (and their closing attorney), our HELOC subordinator, SBA, home owner insurer and more. Each day of fresh hell by BAC was captured by many kept in the loop. The 90 day contract end was approaching, and BAC was blowing it, so they asked us to extend the contract. We refused. Then they sent us a FedEx packet of a substandard loan type application so far from decent terms and HARPII goals they would have taken us straight to foreclosure had we considered the inferior loan offered.
While they currently deny this in complaints we filed and they mislead the investigation - the FACT is that BAC failed our refinance goals within their 90 day contract closing date terms. We did not walk away or give up getting them to the table. My email proof shows from start to finish Bank Of America's use of time and elements to bring us to a closing date in the contractual period. A key reason was finding further breach of our trust and intent. As we dug into the paperwork of our loan application and contract to refinance, we found out that BAC did not offer us a HARPII product at all. This perhaps is the most infuriating aspect as from start to finish of our interactions with them - our meetings in person, phone calls and all email correspondence on our end mentions HARPII as the product we were seeking and had thought was the refinancing product we were entering into. We demanded Bank of America return of our application/credit fee AND pay us back for the Subordination fee of $295 our Credit Union charged to continue remaining second lien holder on the HARPII refinance. The CU did not have to return the fee as they'd done their job. We had so much proof of wrong doing in the emails that Bank of America met our demand to make us whole. They repaid the $295.00 we lost because we MADE THEM. Had we not been so diligent to memorialize their behavior in emails, and had they not exposed themselves to outside vendors via these emails - we'd have never gotten our money back at all. We were obnoxious. No apologies! We walked away, but still have a home that is underwater and a mortgage that is harder and harder to pay. While cost of living has risen to impact our small life (we don't live large!) and my husband's company not giving him a raise in SIX YEARS (another story for another time for middle class families staying in their jobs out of fear to be without a job!) has begun to deeply affect our ability to keep our heads above water. Had we obtained a HARPII, or other relief from TARP greed after the 2008 collapse, we'd live in a home what it is worth with appropriate equity to obtain a lower interest rate and lower monthly payment with our Fannie Mae home.
The latest insult was in filing a complaint against BAC's handling of what we thought was HARPII with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Bank of America receives this complaint and is made to answer to it. They answered alright! Using slight of hand, ignoring my evidence of email throughout the period of contract, the answer to the complaint BAC provided was to turn it back around on us for being at fault. They said we walked away during the 90 day period with no mention that they'd timed out on fulfilling the contract terms in product expected and time to come to a closing day. I have yet had energies to provide rebuttal and rebuke their statements to blame us and walk away without accountability. I have all the proof I need in the emails for the entire timeline of what went wrong, what was wrong and their written acceptance of responsibility for failing to provide us with a HARPII refinance.
We are just one family affected by this sort of behavior by all of the TARP banks continuing to hold property owners hostage to homes that were devalued, left without equity or ability to sell - under the provisions that the federal law provided with all the products to remedy the 2008 outcome that befell most American home owners. We have also tried to obtain refinancing relief tools by the lawsuit settlement against the TARP banks to work specifically on remedies for folks like us. The National Mortgage Settlement website helps those who did lose their homes to foreclosure during certain time periods, as well as help for folks like us, who are not in foreclosure, but experiencing the impact of underwater values and inability to refinance as we tried to do under HARPII. So far, I cannot find relief, but rather many trails to further confusion. I knew we fit in somewhere, and I know there's some sort of help available to rebalance what was taken from our family, and perhaps yours. At this point, we are hard pressed to keep up on our mortgage as we foresaw last year as our objective to obtain timely refinancing using the HARPII relief. We are slowly slipping through the cracks.
This is our story - and I am more than open to asking for media help to tell it - with all the proof of paper, emails and evidence to turn this around and help ourselves and for thousands of families like us to help retain our home, or sell it to tighten our belts. The housing industry is still in down-market ruin, keeping folks from selling, downsizing or moving to where jobs are in rebuilding our national economy.
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