My Loan with Bank of America

We moved aboard the boat full time, and got the house ready to be put on the market. As my American readers are painfully aware, this is when the bottom started dropping out of the US real estate market, and my family watched in horror as our home lost $275,000 in value in under a year, the city the house was in wobbled around declaring bankruptcy, and my husband’s home construction business collapsed. Suddenly, we were supporting a mortgage, a boat payment, and five people on one salary. We held it together financially, but as the American Economic Death-Wobble increased, I was laid off from my Technical Editor job at Sun Microsystems, with 5,999 of my friends, and the whole thing was no longer do-able.

Throughout this debacle, we kept making payments on the boat, s/v Excellent Adventure, as she was our home, our primary residence. We had attempted to do a loan modification with Bank of America, the loan holder, early on in the cycle, because continuity and commitment in our dealings with them seemed important. Because it was a boat, and not an on-land home, they refused, although they were quite good about tolerating missed payments, and even set up a three-month deferral for us at one point.

We declared bankruptcy in February 2009.

In order to keep creditors from potentially demanding a sale of our home, we reaffirmed the debt, and again requested loan modification. We included a survey and a letter from a local boat broker, verifying that in the current economic climate, with people walking away from boats, that our boat in its current state of repair (because what fiberglass boat from 1991 doesn’t need some serious work by now?) wouldn’t be sellable.

I contacted B of A in February, to see what was going on with the loan modification. I spoke to Customer Service, who told me that my file had to process their bankruptcy department, and that they couldn’t even see my account until bankruptcy was done with it. I asked when that would happen, and what the status of my loan modification was. I was told to hold tight, and wait for them to contact me with new payment information.

I never heard back from them.

In May, thoroughly worried, I called Customer Service. I was told that my file was still in Bankruptcy, they had not even begun to look at loan modification, and I should hold tight. At that time, I went ahead and gave them a payment of ~$4400, over the phone, to make sure that everything was current, even by the old payment amount unmodified. She accepted my payment, and assured me again that I’d hear from B of A soon.

Friday, September 11, at 12:38 in the afternoon, I received a call from April at Collections, informing me that my account was 107 days overdue, that my home was going to be repossessed, and that the Marina had put a lien on my boat for nonpayment of slip fee. This was the first contact I’d had from B of A since May. No letters, no phone calls, no bill, nothing.

April demanded full payment of ~$5500 immediately, to avoid repossession. I explained that B of A was supposed to be exploring loan modification, and that I’d go ahead and give her half right now over the phone in good faith to call off the repo, and reopen renegotiations on my loan.

She would not take a payment over the phone. I was required to go to my bank, withdraw the full amount in cash (NOT cashiers check or money order, cash), drive to a Bank of America branch, have the Branch Manager contact Collections, and verify receipt of funds.

I told her that I’d have to make sure I had enough funds, and that I could, again, give her two months immediately, which would bring me only a few months overdue. This was, suddenly, unacceptable, so I said I’d see what my options were and contact my attorney. The more I tried to ask questions, the angrier and more absolute April got.

I called my attorney, and left voicemail at each of his offices and on his home phone.

At this point, things got weird. Over a few conversations over the next few hours, first they knew about the bankruptcy, then they had no record of it. First, it was the reason they hadn’t sent me any bills, then, it was me lying. When I offered to fax a copy of the bankruptcy to them, so they’d know that I had certain protection under the law from this threatened repo, April transferred me, without asking or saying she was doing it, to her supervisor, Brian. This, of course, after she’d said I had to deal with her and no one else.