Surviving Bank of America

Six tips & expectations to survive the Bank of America subordination process:

1)  Prepare clients for a long underwriting period.  

It would not hurt to go to your local grocer or bathroom cabinet to have something at the ready to sooth your headache or a squeeze ball at the ready for your frustration.   Having some James Taylor on in the background might calm your spirits.

2)  Do not lock your loan for under 30 days.

3)  Pay Bank of America off

If there is enough equity, seriously consider paying off the HELOC or 2nd mortgage with Bank of America and opening another line with a different lender after closing to prevent having to deal with a Bank of America Subordinations.

4) Turn times published are unrealistic at best.

Their published 10 day underwriting turn time is just flat out not realistic.   In fact, it is outright false in almost every case where we processed a subordination through our escrow firm or here at Nationwide Subordinations.  For your convenience, on our homepage in the middle left section, we publish near live turn times every week for several lenders.  This should help you prepare for a realistic time frame.

Why is their published turn time unrealistic?  Here’s a brief sampling of our own experiences this Fall with pipeline files at the Bank of America Subordination department:

• Bank of America Subordination dept. outright lost an inbound, signed for, Fed Ex package with a cashiers check (later accounted for nearly 12 days after they signed for it).  Several customer service representatives could not even provide a solution for whom to research the problem.
• Bank of America Subordination department routinely takes DAYS for their processors to provide documentation of conditions that were provided verbally over the phone by customer service representatives that have literally no experience in lending other than reading internal notes to you (from their computer monitor) over the phone.
• Bank of America customer service representatives have provided erroneous information causing a homeowner, processor and closing Attorney to question the progress of their subordination.
• Bank of America subordination department asks for duplicate documents already provided but mysteriously is not part of the package initially provided.
• We were asked by Bank of America customer service/subordination staff to fax the same document to three different bank associates over a two week period after which it took days for them to log it in their system.   Once they logged the fax in their system, they started their 10 days underwriting period three weeks after they have received the subordination request package!
• Having a file in “escalation” status doe s not mean it will be underwritten the same or next day.
• Not once has Bank of America followed our instructions for contacting us when approval has been made nor providing Fed Ex tracking of the outbound subordination.  Not once.

4)  Loan amount increase or lender change? 

Please say to yourself 10 times in a row, “I promise to notify my processor and Bank of America BEFORE the subordination is shipped.”   If you happen to need an amended Subordination after it has been shipped, prepare for more time and money to be spent.   It will not happen instantaneously.

5)  How’s your phone skills?

If you decide to process and track your own subordination be prepared to spend at least 20 minutes or more on the phone per day tracking your subordination status.    Dont’ wait for Bank of America to contact you—it will not happen.  It is not uncommon for our company to be on the line with Bank of America on a file for anywhere from 30 minutes to over an hour.  Sometimes we are disconnected after a long hold.   This is primarily the #1 reason people elect to use our service vs. going the DIY route.  They don’t have time or patience.

6) You will almost never be in contact with a Bank of America subordination staff or underwriter on a specific file unless they happen to contact you via e-mail.   And then, do not expect a response to any of your questions quickly.   In many cases, responses to a question will not occur until the next business day which can result in costly delays to your transaction.

Bonus: 7)  Refer to the blog posts by Bank of America customers and lending professionals regarding their experiences.  Note:  we could not publish the majority due to “salty” or “sailor” language.

Bonus: 8)  When all else fails, use social media and tweet for help:   @BofA_help.   At least you will be responded to with the nicest customer service reps that can do virtually nothing to help you other than providing you with some of the information you already have.

-Nationwide Subordination Staff