Monday, January 26th, 2009 at 9:08 AM
Close Call
This 1,486sf house at 4244 Esperanza was foreclosed by Countrywide on September 9, 2008. The previous owners had run up the housing ATM to $441,000, and bailed.
Shortly thereafter it was assigned to me as an REO – but it was still occupied by the long-term tenants. It turned out that they wanted to buy it, and their short sale offer was being reviewed by Countrywide at the time of the trustee sale.
I relayed that information to the asset manager, and said “Why don’t we just sell it to them?”
He said to make sure they were pre-approved, which we did, and he’d order an appraisal.
Three months went by, and in spite of my constant badgering, no call from an appraiser.
The asset managers each have 300-400 files in process, but how many can work more than 100 effectively? Not many, if any. As you can guess, plenty are falling through the cracks.
The last week of December I finally hear from the appraiser. I contacted the tenants’ realtor to schedule an appointment, and got a real shock. They had continued to push their offer through the short sale division, got it approved, signed docs and were literally ready to close!
When I relayed that to the asset manager, he declared it to be impossible. I mentioned that it’s the third one I’ve seen that Countrywide has rescinded the trustee sale, and he didn’t believe that either. He demanded that I provide proof that it closed, once it did.
The next week I sent him a copy of the grant deed proving it had indeed closed, but that wasn’t good enough – he wanted to see the closing statement too. But I’m not a party to the transaction, why would anyone give me a copy of the closing statement?
He proceeded to put his foot on the gas with the eviction attorney, who let me know that the sheriff was scheduled to throw the former-tenants-now-new-owners out in the street in a few days. I pleaded for mercy, sent them the grant deed, and thankfully the attorney backed off.
But I could help but think how close I was to being on the front page of every newspaper in the western world over that one!
Posted on Monday, January 26th, 2009 at 9:08 AM in Foreclosures/REOs, Short Sales | 11 Comments » | 
Print
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
You still need to be on the front pages…
“Jim the Realtor” saves Countrywide from making an *ss of itself yet again.”
GeneK | January 26th, 2009 at 9:43 amWow they’re actually kicking people out of forclosed properties.
shadash | January 26th, 2009 at 9:52 amYou’re a better man than I am, Jim.
greenlander | January 26th, 2009 at 9:53 am“Wow they’re actually kicking people out of forclosed properties.”
And since it’s Countrywide, it figures that the people they’d try to kick out of one of their forclosed properties would be the people who bought it after the foreclosure.
Did BoA not fire *anyone* at Countrywide after taking it over?
GeneK | January 26th, 2009 at 9:59 amHow exactly does one actually evict someone from a house that has been purchased? If countrywide (a differnt division of it) had actually signed off on the release of the secrurity, then a different division can’t try to enforce it. If, by some strange alignment of the starsm they had actually tried to evict them I could see a bunch of nasty litigation against countrywide, the realtors and even the sheriff if it came to that.
Former RB Resident | January 26th, 2009 at 10:19 amIf you did end up in the papers I’m sure you’d come across as the dashing hero who did everything he could to facilitate the sale. Worst case is you’d become the poster boy for everything that is wrong with the entire mortgage crisis. Personally I’m hoping you get the exposure, because your story needs to get out there. Keep that in mind when you see Steve Croft and the 60 Minutes camera crew coming up your front walk.
Best regards to you and keep fighting the good fight!
RBRenter | January 26th, 2009 at 10:56 am“How exactly does one actually evict someone from a house that has been purchased?”
Presumably by having an attorney go before a judge and request an order of eviction claiming (incorrectly) that the company is the current titleholder. If the new owners are able to produce their copy of the signed-off papers when the deputies arrive and the deputies are more on the ball than Countrywide’s people, the result would probably be a flurry of calls between the sherrif, the court, the attorney and Countrywide, resulting in no eviction that day and Countrywide ending up as the lead story on the evening news all across the country.
GeneK | January 26th, 2009 at 11:11 amWow. New levels of insanity. So they will drag their feet and delay when trying to sell the property, but move super-quick full-speed-ahead when trying to evict the new owners. Just what is wrong with those people?
Dwip | January 26th, 2009 at 11:49 amSorry if this has been previously reported, but what did the new owners end up paying for this property? From the picture, looks like a garage with attached house.
Natureboy | January 26th, 2009 at 2:24 pmWow, just wow. A case of the right antenna not knowing what the left mandible is doing.
Blissful Ignoramus | January 26th, 2009 at 7:00 pmAt some point, C-wide’s atty’s will recognize the risks they are running repping an incompetent client.
This should be a self-correcting problem…
4runner | January 27th, 2009 at 12:39 am