Homeowners demand Principal Reductions by Bank of America and Freddie Mac

A call for a statewide moratorium to stop all foreclosures and evictions

What  Picket in front of Bank of America, 2154 MacArthur Blvd @ Fruitvale, Oakland
 

Why: Write Down the Principal and Modify the Loan for Manuel de Paz, Oakland homeowner

When: Thursday, Aug 2, 12 noon.

Who: Homeowners and supporters from Just Cause and other community allies

Manuel de Paz to Bank of America representative in a conference call: “When you got my application and it was missing something why didn’t you ask me for what was incomplete? You never responded to my many requests for a status update.” B of A rep to Manuel:  “Well the past is the past and we can’t look back.”

These are the kind of practices that have been addressed and identified as problematic under the Consent Decree (the office of the Comptroller of the Currency) based on a suit filed by Attorney Generals of all 50 states; and under the Homeowner Bill of Rights

Manuel de Paz is fighting Bank of America for his home after they put it on the auction block despite the fact that he has applied for but never received a response to his HAMP application. He waited almost 18 months for a response. Says Paz, “They never told me they were missing something from the packet I sent them, or that it was incomplete.”

He finally stopped paying the mortgage. He is not willing to work 12-14 hours a day, two jobs, six days a week to pay Bank of America for a house worth a fraction of the mortgage.

Interestingly enough, that was the only time he got a speedy response from B of A, who sent him a Notice of Default one month later. Bank of America now claims that they can do nothing to modify the loan at it is currently owned by Freddie Mac. They have scheduled an auction of the property for next week, effectively ‘dual tracking’ the home, a practice forbidden by the Homeowners Bill of Rights, recently passed in California.

Paz is one of the hundreds of thousands of homeowners subject to the whims of the banks and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Eddie DeMarco, the acting director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), which regulates the government mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac announced Tuesday, that he still will not allow any principal reductions (resetting home loans to fair market value) for struggling, underwater homeowners on the grounds that it would cost the taxpayers too much.

This, even after a study by the FHFA that found principal reductions would actually save taxpayers more than a billion dollars.   

Freddie Mac’s policy against principal reduction, and the nefarious actions by the banks that service these loans is resulting in families like the de Paz family continuing to lose their homes.

Manuel de Paz will be joined by other borrowers whose loans were serviced by Bank of America as well as supporters from Just Cause and other community members.