More often than not, losing a home to foreclosure can be avoided. Simply staying on top of the bank by demanding everything in writing, and confirming details with all involved parties, leaves nothing to be chanced. I have been in negotiations with American Servicing Company, a subsidiary of Wells Fargo, for over 8 months regarding a file that has had its foreclosure sale date postponed 6 times! This home had been listed with several other agents, until it finally landed with me. After some intense negotiations, the aforementioned numerous deadline extensions, several Broker Price Opinions – the bank’s version of an appraisal – and an IRS lien removal we are finally nearing its closing.  However, there is one more hurdle we’re needing to overcome… the sale date!

The sale date. You may be asking yourself, “How could that be?”  Allow me to explain:  We were issued a Settlement Letter – an offer from the bank to settle the loan to avoid foreclosure – which would expire on August 19, 2010.  However we were also issued a second letter, with a “Foreclosure Sale Date Pending” of August 5, 2010. This was not a huge surprise to me, based on my experience that most banks do not communicate, not to mention coincide dates, between departments. With this knowledge in hand, I knew to make sure to push for a “Sale Date Extension” from the correct department. Some agents assume because they have a Settlement Letter, they are “safe” against foreclosure sale… they are WRONG! Sale Dates TRUMP ALL! You must take things to the next level in order to not lose months worth of hard work for your clients.  That being said, I called the foreclosing attorney, who said that they could not postpone, and that the bank would need to authorize any postponement.

So, back to the bank I went.  Keep in mind, I was negotiating the foreclosure, not the sale date, at this point.  After reaching the bank, the claim was made that they “could not postpone, due to investor guidelines.”  I couldn’t help but laugh!   According to their settlement letter, I had approval from their investor through the 19th of August!  Did this mean they hadn’t actually checked with their own investor before issuing the approval? Or did this mean that they had NO IDEA of the true details of this home? Obviously it is the latter, because the sale date was issued for August 5 – fourteen days before our deadline to settle, and pay offthe loan.  Something wasn’t adding up.

After some careful questioning and a bit of escalation, our new sale date is August 19, 2010. We’ll be closing this file early, but there’s no better triumph than being told no by several people, then to get a verbal apology from management for their mistake! Thanks to Wells Fargo for doing the right thing!