Mr. Goyda said that “such notices are not part of the loan modification package, or part of the documentation required for the customer to accept or decline modification
offers.” He added, “We do not finalize a modification without receiving signed documents from the customer and, where required, approval from the bankruptcy court.”
Mr. Limon and other lawyers say that while the bank may wait for approval to complete a modification,
it has nevertheless put through unapproved changes to borrowers’ payment plans.
Buried deep in the documents Wells Fargo filed — but did not get approved by the borrowers, their lawyers or the court — was the news
that the bank would extend the Cottons’ loan to 40 years, increasing the amount of interest they would have to pay.
Wells Fargo Is Accused of Making Improper Changes to Mortgages -
By GRETCHEN MORGENSONJUNE 14, 2017
Even as Wells Fargo was reeling from a major scandal in its consumer bank last year, officials in the company’s mortgage business were
putting through unauthorized changes to home loans held by customers in bankruptcy, a new class action and other lawsuits contend.
On one hand, Wells Fargo stood to profit from the new loan terms it set forth, and, under programs designed to encourage loan modifications for
troubled borrowers, the bank receives as much as $1,600 from government programs for every such loan it adjusts, the class-action lawsuit said.
“Modifications help customers stay in their homes when they encounter financial challenges,” Mr. Goyda
said, “and we have used them to help more than one million families since the beginning of 2009.”
According to court documents, Wells Fargo has been putting through unrequested changes to borrowers’ loans since 2015.
