New York Set to Sue Wells Fargo Over Mortgages

Fielding complaints from borrowers struggling to save their homes, New York’s top prosecutor is readying a lawsuit against Wells Fargo, accusing the nation’s largest home lender of flouting the terms of a multibillion-dollar settlement aimed at stanching foreclosure abuses.

The lawsuit, which is expected to be filed as early as Wednesday, accuses Wells Fargo of violating the guidelines of a broad pact hashed out last year between five of the nation’s largest banks and 49 state attorneys general.

Under that deal, the banks have to comply with 304 servicing standards. The guidelines map out how banks should field and process requests from homeowners trying to reduce the size of their monthly payments.

Vickee J. Adams, a spokeswoman for Wells Fargo, said the bank had not been served with a copy of the lawsuit. But, she added, “if true, it is very disappointing that the New York attorney general continues to pursue his course, given our commitment to the terms of the National Mortgage Settlement and ongoing engagement.”

“Wells Fargo has been a leader in preventing foreclosures, helping families maintain home ownership with more than 880,000 modifications nationwide and 26,000 in New York over the last four years,” she said.

The New York attorney general, Eric Schneiderman, had earlier sent a warning shot to Bank of America and Wells Fargo, announcing in May that he had found that both banks violated the terms of the mortgage settlement. That announcement prompted negotiations between the New York prosecutor’s office and the two banks.

The outcomes for the lenders are starkly different. While Wells Fargo is bracing for a lawsuit, Bank of America is poised to announce a series of additional protections that they have adopted following discussions with Mr. Schneiderman’s office. Those additional protectionsâ€"including an agreement to designate a “high-level” employee dedicated to fielding and responding to questions from housing counselorsâ€"appear to have won Bank of America a reprieve from a lawsuit.

“We are pleased to resolve these matters without litigation,” said a spokesman for Bank of America, Dan B. Frahm. “Along with the settlement monitoring committee, we continue to improve the experience for eligible customers and groups that represent them.”

More state attorneys general may follow Mr. Schneiderman’s lead. The Massachusetts attorney general, Martha Coakley, has also sent a letter to Joseph A. Smith, the settlement monitor, outlining “recurring issues” with mortgage servicers, according to a copy of the letter reviewed by The Times.

For Wells Fargo, though, the discussions with the New York attorney general’s office resulted in a standoff. Mr. Schneiderman’s office, people briefed on the matter said, had pushed Wells Fargo to acknowledge a systematic pattern of mortgage servicing errors and to commit to a new agreement codifying changes to the way the bank services mortgages. Wells Fargo balked, the people said, and the talks broke down last week.

Amid the languishing talks, the bank sent a letter to Mr. Schneiderman’s office, reiterating its commitment to “helping borrowers maintain homeownership and achieve long-term financial success,” according to a copy of the letter reviewed by The New York Times.

The New York attorney general had found 210 separate violations involving the bank and 96 borrowers. Four of those borrowers, the letter said, were not Wells Fargo customers. In its letter, the bank said it “disagrees with allegations” related to the remaining borrowers.

Of the remainder, the bank has approved loan modifications for 39 customers and made a final decision on the loan modification applications for 28 others. Beyond assisting the homeowners identified by Mr. Schneiderman’s office, Wells Fargo voluntarily improved its processes, the bank argued in its letter.

Those concessions apparently did not appease Mr. Schneiderman’s office. Part of the problem, the people briefed on the matter said, was that Wells Fargo refused to formalize improvements to their processes in an agreement.

Some within the attorney general’s office also felt the bank’s proposed fixes constituted a whack-a-mole approach in which Wells Fargo addressed only the cases originally highlighted, the people briefed on the matter said. The New York attorney general’s office still receives more complaints about Wells Fargo’s servicing than any other lender, they added.

The settlement guidelines include requirements that banks provide homeowners with a single point of contact and notify borrowers of missing documentation within five days.
They are intended to help homeowners who are looking to modify their mortgagesâ€"a process that can prove frustrating for homeowners asked to submit the same documents again and again and again.

Such delays can mean the difference between saving a home and losing it to foreclosure, according to housing counselors. When applications for relief languish with borrowers caught in a bureaucratic maze, homeowners amass additional costs, like late fees and property taxes.

Ms. Adams of Wells Fargo said that the bank “continuously implements additional customer-focused measures based on the constructive feedback we receive from our customers, the monitoring committee and individual states, including New York.” She added that the bank believes a “collaborative approach” is better for homeowners than “protracted litigation.”

The move against Wells Fargo is the first time that an attorney general has sued one of the five participating banks on charges related to the settlement. That settlement, reached in February 2012, sprung from an investigation into mortgage servicing from all 50 state attorneys general that began in 2010 amid a national outcry that banks were relying on mass-produced documents to evict homeowners wrongfully.