Sept. 15, 2009
Written 9:30 a.m. EDT
MORE ON TAYLOR, BEAN: If you have been affected by the abrupt shutdown of Taylor, Bean & Whitaker, make sure to read yesterday's article on Bankrate, in which I describe how consumers are affected, whom to call, and why TBW failed.
Unfortunately, the Taylor, Bean situation is messy, and the advice in the article doesn't apply to everyone. I'll give some examples.
As the article explains, some people received escrow refund checks from TBW that bounced. Yesterday, a recipient of one of these bounced checks got a letter from TBW's vice president of loan servicing, who wrote: "At this time, our bank accounts are currently frozen by the FDIC. We are actively working with the FDIC to remove this freeze, at which time the funds will be available to you."
Other homeowners have told me that they've gotten through to TBW customer service reps who have told them to expect new escrow refund checks "in a couple of weeks" or "in a few weeks."
For its part, the FDIC tells me that they don't have anything to do with TBW.
Most of the loans that TBW was servicing have been transferred to other servicers (either a Bank of America subsidiary, or Cenlar, or Ocwen or Saxon). But as I mentioned in the article, not all of TBW's loans were transferred immediately. There were 34,922 Alt-A loans that fell into a sort of netherworld. Florida's financial regulator (TBW is based in Ocala, Fla.) was pushing last week for TBW to find servicers for those nearly 35,000 loans.
I got an e-mail last night from one of these 34,922 homeowners. She lives in San Diego. She writes:
Unlike most of the TBW customers, I have NOT received any letter telling me where my loan was sent, and I have called every single one of the other companies that took on the former TBW loans and I'm not on their list. My mortgage was not a government backed mortgage that I am aware of. Part of the issue might be that since late May, TBW had contracted with another company, Sparta, to process their loan modifications. They were in touch with me, I had a negotiator, had sent them everything, and was just waiting for them to present me with some options (3 months into the official loan mod process). Then I sent an email to the Sparta negotiator one day, and she called me and told me very mysteriously that my file had been returned to TBW earlier that week. She was not allowed to say more and I finally figured out from the internet what had happened.
As you can see, I'm rather concerned about my loan because nobody knows where it is. I got one referral to the people that are running the now bankrupt Colonial Bank which was related to TBW, and they told me the FDIC is trying to wade through all the loans, and that there may be some that TBW is still holding on to (for what I'm not sure).
She concludes, "Isn't this incredible?" Yes, I think that's a good word to describe this situation.
Florida's Office of Financial Regulation says on its TBW Web page that it "is monitoring the situation, and is communicating with TBW, in an attempt to assist Florida consumers as well as regulators from other states." If that sounds to you like, "we'll help you if you live in Florida, but not if you live elsewhere," you are correct. The Florida regulator is telling out-of-staters that they should contact their state's banking department to register complaints about TBW's servicing.
I also got this ominous e-mail yesterday:
"TBW did not pay my home insurance when the premium was due. I can get no response. That is $700 that should be protecting my home but instead they have either spent it or who knows what. I have been uninsured for 4 months ... and don't have the $700 to pay the bill."
If you have a TBW loan, I suggest that you call the homeowners insurance company to make sure your policy is paid up, and to find out what you can do if it's not. I'm interested in hearing from readers whose insurance was unpaid because the escrow money is in limbo. What does the insurance company tell you? Have you reached anyone at TBW? I'm at hlewis@bankrate.com.