Possibly Some Good News in Arizona

Don't start counting any money yet, but yesterday the Attorney General of Arizona filed suit under Arizona's consumer fraud law against Bank of America. The suit accuses the bank of violations of the law in two areas. First, BofA is accused of misleading consumers in the state by having them continue to make mortgage payments while BofA allegedly claimed it (the bank) was working on loan modifications for the homeowners. Instead, in many cases allegedly, the loan mod never happened, in spite of the borrowers' good faith payments, and the bank foreclosed on the homes anyway. After an absolute flood of complaints by consumers was made to the Attorney General's office, an investigation was initiated over a year ago. This led to a lengthy round of settlement talks between the state and the bank, which commenced in April of 2010. These negotiations continued for months, but finally failed, collapsing on December 10.

According to the Attorney General, Terry Goddard, the bank also allegedly violated the existing terms of a consent agreement arrived at in 2009 that required BofA's subsidiary, Countrywide, to create a loan mod program.
What does this mean for you if you're a homeowner facing foreclosure or already foreclosed upon by BofA/Countrywide? It's difficult to be certain at this stage. First, some result will have to be reached, and, as with anything in legal action, that can take any amount of time from a few months, if settlement can be quickly reached, to years, if it has to go through the whole legal process, including appeals. Also, it will depend on whatever the terms of any final settlement or decision end up being. Does a homeowner receive monetary damages, get their home back, or what? At this stage, there's no way to determine an answer.

So, you ask, what's so good about this? Well, the short answer is that you have the power of a state government, with far more resources than any individual, going up against the bank. At least someone has taken the initiative and gotten a ball rolling. For the ultimate result, we'll have to wait and see.

Good luck to everyone potentially involved. To the more general readership of this blog, here's hoping the Holiday season is a happy one, and the New Year brings you all you seek for you and your family and loved ones.