Consumer complaint received 2017-04-19
Product: Mortgage — Conventional fixed mortgage
Issue: Loan modification,collection,foreclosure — 
Company: BANK OF AMERICA, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION (NJ)

My mother has owned our home for 45 years and is facing a foreclosure auction on  XXXX   XXXX . This was a situation that could have been avoided but we were given terrible advice by  Bank of America w ho instructed us to miss our mortgage payments so we could try and renegotiate our loan. However, we have spent months and years going back and forth with them and have made no progress. Now they are telling us it is too late, and refuse to open a review of the most recent changes in our financial situation to see if there are any programs we may qualify for to save our home. I realize that we have not been making our payments, but even when this first started and we tried to resume making payments the agents at Ban k of America said th ey would not accept it because we had to cover all late fees, all delinquencies, inspection and Attorney fees etc. I was led to believe that we would miss a couple of payments in order to qualify for review and then this would be handled. Instead it has turned into a nightmare. My mother is  XXXX    years old   and retired and a foreclosure would be devastating.     Our problem with this loan began in   XXXX   when I lost my job. I was able to go onto unemployment and we continued scraping by and making the monthly payment. We reached out to the agents at B ank of America at that time and explained the situation. They told us that they could not help unless we actually MISSED OUR MOR TGAGE PAYMENT. Even though this went against all business principles, we followed their advice. Since the unemployment was ending, it was going to be very tough to continue making the payments, but I believe we could have done so if not advised to stop by the employees at Ban k of America.      After missing a few payments, we began trying to negotiate with the agents at B ank of America to receive a modification based on the changes in our financial situation. This was very lengt hy and cumbersome and we were continually assigned and then reassigned to different account managers. I sent the paperwork in on multiple occasions but it continued to get lost or misplaced. This happened several times, it was not an isolated incident. Finally, after months and months of back and forth Ban k of America con ducted a review of our information, and we were told that the application was denied due to lack of income.     Not long after that I was able to start working again and we now had more income to use to qualify for a modification. During this time frame we attempted to start making mortgage payments again, but as mentioned they would not accept them. My sister was living in the home as well and contributing and we were leery of dealing directly with Bank  of America so we hired a law firm to help us negotiate with the bank. Unfortunately, the law firm did not have much lu ck with B of A either and we were told that they were not going to approve the application, although we were never told why.     Since that time we have been told that our loan has been sold to   XXXX   XXXX   XXXX   XXXX  , then to  XXXX   XXXX , then we are told to still make our payments to Bank  XXXX  f America. This  is all very confusing. At this time there is a sale date set for  XXXX   XXXX . We want this sale date postponed, because we were never afforded the opportunity to engage in state mandated mediation. Additionally, there has been a change in our financial circumstances, and we feel that Bank  of America has   purposely avoided reviewing our information for the last several months. We want an opportunity to be considered for all government and internal programs that are available based on our current and correct monthly income. We want to file a formal complaint against B ank of America for the wa y they have handled this loan.