{"id":5617,"date":"2012-03-14T08:01:44","date_gmt":"2012-03-14T14:01:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/?p=5617"},"modified":"2012-03-14T08:01:44","modified_gmt":"2012-03-14T14:01:44","slug":"new-reports-show-staggering-pace-of-foreclosure-signing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/2012\/03\/14\/new-reports-show-staggering-pace-of-foreclosure-signing\/","title":{"rendered":"New Reports Show Staggering Pace Of Foreclosure Signing"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Molly Messick \/ StateImpact Idaho<\/p>

Ben and Lori Jensen now live in Meridian, after losing their home in Star, Idaho.<\/p><\/div>\n

<\/strong>Four hundred.\u00a0 That’s how many foreclosure-related documents an Ally bank employee might have processed every <\/del><\/strong> day at the height of the foreclosure crisis.\u00a0 At Bank of America, the rate was a stunning 75 to 80 per hour.<\/p>\n

Those figures come from a set of government reports<\/a> released this week.\u00a0 According to The Wall Street Journal<\/em><\/a>, the audits were the evidence and leverage federal officials used <\/del><\/strong>to negotiate the $25 billion settlement reached last month<\/a> with five of the nation’s largest lenders.<\/p>\n

Longtime StateImpact<\/em> Idaho<\/em> followers might remember that Bank of America was the lender involved with Ben and Lori Jensen’s foreclosure<\/a>.\u00a0 In our interview last fall, Ben Jensen told me the story of their foreclosure.\u00a0 In many ways, it was typical.\u00a0 The Jensens were doing just fine until the economy turned and Ben Jensen’s<\/del><\/strong> hours were cut.\u00a0 Then there were some emergency expenses.\u00a0 Suddenly, he and Lori couldn’t afford their mortgage.<\/p>\n

“Talking to the bank was the first option because it seemed like we might be able to refinance the home or get a lower interest rate on the mortgage,” Jensen <\/del><\/strong>remembered.\u00a0 But their mortgage was underwater, and the bank wouldn’t talk to them until they were delinquent.\u00a0 “We\u2019d never made a late payment on anything in our lives.\u00a0 So it was a huge decision for us to take that step,” he said.<\/p>\n

When they did stop making payments, it was in hopes of negotiating a lower monthly payment and staying in their home.\u00a0 But they got caught up in a snarl of communication problems.\u00a0 “That was the most frustrating thing,” Jensen <\/del><\/strong><\/strong>said.\u00a0 “I would call into the call center, and I had a tricky system where I could bypass to get to an actual person.\u00a0 And when I would get to an actual person they would absolutely stonewall me.\u00a0 They would basically just give me the same thing every time I would call.\u00a0 ‘It\u2019s processing.\u00a0 We have all your documents.'”\u00a0 Eventually, the Jensens tried for a short-sale.\u00a0 They had an offer, but the the bank foreclosed anyway.<\/p>\n

That is the story behind just one of the vast number of foreclosures banks processed daily in the wake of the housing crash.\u00a0 No doubt, there are many similar stories right here in Idaho.\u00a0 After all, this state has had one of the highest foreclosure rates in the country<\/a>.<\/p>\n

How did so many people — not just bank officials, but everyday employees — become complicit in the robo-signing debacle?\u00a0 The WSJ<\/em> article offers this explanation:<\/p>\n

“The reports we just released will leave the reader asking one question–how could so many people have participated in this misconduct?” the inspector general, David Montoya, said. “The answer: simple greed.” – The Wall Street Journal<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Four hundred.\u00a0 That’s how many foreclosure-related documents an Ally bank employee might have processed every day at the height of the foreclosure crisis.\u00a0 At Bank of America, the rate was a stunning 75 to 80 per hour. Those figures come from a set of government reports released this week.\u00a0 According to The Wall Street Journal, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":46,"featured_media":5618,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[13],"tags":[40,46],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5617"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/46"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5617"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5617\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5641,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5617\/revisions\/5641"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5618"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}