Consumer complaint received 2020-12-23
Company: BANK OF AMERICA, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION
State: RI
Product: Mortgage
Sub-product: Conventional home mortgage
Issue: Struggling to pay mortgage

Complaint:
In making a phone call to Bank of America back in XXXX / XXXX about something else, they offered to pause our loan payments for 90 days with the suggestion that the payments would be shifted to the end of our payment term. My only concern was my credit, and they confirmed it would never be placed on my credit file. This was a huge help because it was right at the beginning of the pandemic and my husband was scheduled for XXXX XXXX XXXX and we were taking a pause from our 2 businesses ( XXXX and XXXX XXXX ) due to the COVID lockdowns. 90 days came and went, they put us thru the ringer with constant paperwork requests and then later they just insisted that we make 4 months 'lump sum ' payment. Obviously paying 4 months lump sum was not possible so we asked for more time to either refi or come up with the money, since they originally had told us it would just be tacked into the end. They informed us that there was now no way we could refi as they had promptly put the forbearance info on my credit report, a measure they said they wouldn't do originally. I assume with rates now so low, they did this to warn other banks away. The only option they offered was that we had to make a lump sum payment, which at the time was {$14000.00} and growing with each missed payment. We literally had four or five different case workers, every couple of weeks they would leave and be replaced so we would have to explain the entire thing over again to a new person who basically would reiterate the same thing - that our only option was to make a lump sum payment. Then we would never hear from them again, other than to ask for more of the same paperwork. We had to fire sale a vacant lot that was our backyard, which we used the proceeds to pay off the mortgage. By placing the forbearance info on out credit after only 60 days from our original conversation, our hands were now tied to refi with another bank and the terms they offered us were outrageous. 

I'm hearing other people having the same issue with BOA. We were able to pay off BOA and it was the best day of my life, even though we had to sell what is basically the back yard of our house. They were absolutely awful to work with. There was no flexibility on the fact that we had to pay a lump sum. I write this because I know there are others out there that don't have the same resources. In talking to one of the case managers, it was as though they wanted to force us into foreclosure so that they could collect the full mortgage back from the government under the Cares act. It was like the program was an incentive to foreclose on people rather than to work with them. They flat out refused to put the payments at the end of the mortgage even though both my husband and I have an XXXX credit score and have had perfect credit for 4+ decades. We worked with 2 other banks ( XXXX bank and XXXX ) regarding loans we have on rental properties - their process was smooth and they were extremely accommodating - so I have 2 other banks to compare with. They simply put the 3 missed at the end of the loan with the additional interest. Easy Peasy and we will continue to work with these great banks as a result of their great process and Relationship building. 

When I ask BOA why putting the payments at the end of the term was not an option for us when other banks were doing that ( with just asking, no mounds of paperwork required ), they said that we did not " qualify ''. I asked them repeatedly for specifics on what part we did not qualify on, but they would not provide anything. It was quite literally a XXXX story because there is absolutely nothing that would stop us from qualifying based on our past payment profile, our future income or creditworthiness. We have about a dozen properties that have no mortgage on them at all, all generating income but for those 3 months we had given several of our tenants a reprieve to making rental payments to us, due to the impact COVID had. They were all back paying at the end of the 90 days so our income stream had returned. 

I would hope that someone follows up with BOA, because we were fortunate to have worked with several other banks for other properties and know that every other Bank was willing to follow the Cares act and worked with us. 

BOA was the loan on our primary residence and if they could have, it was OBVIOUS they would have forced us into foreclosure. It was odd, and obvious that somehow they were being incentivized by the cares act to force people into foreclosure. The only thing that I can think of is that the government would buy the loan, so they were looking fir a way to cash out of forbearance loans regardless of creditworthiness and then they would be able to be free to rewrite new business (? ). I don't really understand it because we were paying in the high 5 's and probably would have continued to pay that loan if they had just given us a 90 day reprieve as originally offered. But it definitely seemed obvious they were incentivized to push only the lump sum option, and as such we were forced to sell a property to pay off the loan as the only option we had to get away from BOA and their horrible business tactics.

Company public response: Company has responded to the consumer and the CFPB and chooses not to provide a public response
Company response to consumer: Closed with non-monetary relief