Specialized Loan Servicing (SLS) is the servicer for my second mortgage on my primary residence. When it became apparent to me that I would not be able to make the loan payments I immediately notified the first lien holder as well as SLS in order to mitigate their loss. I listed the property for short sale in February and finally received an offer for purchase in July.
The offer was accepted by the first lien holder and that approval was sent to SLS for their release of lien. I was initially told by SLS that the offer "looked good" and we could "rap this up" in 2-3 weeks and "nothing was missing" in order for them to consider the offer.
From that point on things went downhill. My agent called regularly for updates and found I was not even assigned a negotiator for my file until months later. I had to continually resend documentation that was previously sent. Each time we spoke with a representative we were assured that we were "close to an approval, that the "offer was within investor guidelines, "there was no reason they should not accept" and that "the investor was still reviewing the file".
The first lien holder's approval called for a closing date of 10/31/07 or sooner.
Today is November 1st and the property is scheduled for a Foreclosure Sale on 11/05 unless I have an approval from SLS. My agent called again today for a status from SLS and my assigned negotiator said she had no idea what was going on with the file because it had been sent to another department!
My agent contacted that department and was informed they had no knowledge of any prior negotiations between me and their loss mitigation department but if we were willing to almost double the original offer they would present it to their manager and it would likely be approved. Otherwise it would be denied and the property would go to foreclosure sale on Monday.
I believe that SLS mislead me, my agent, my buyer and my buyers agent with promises of an impending approval of our offer and through their mishandling of our offer did purposely, willfully and maliciously delay their decision while acting in bad faith all in an attempt to extort additional monies via threat of offer rejection which would force a foreclosure. I believe this is a company wide practice and would love to hear from others about their short sale experience with SLS as well as any attorneys with similar cases against SLS or other lenders. My intent is to file suit against SLS should this go to foreclosure citing among other things their breach of duty to deal in good faith.
See:
Richter v. Bank of America, 939 F. 2d 1176 (5th Cir. 1991)
Bill
San Diego, California
U.S.A.
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