Bankster Pockets Fire Insurance Proceeds To Pay Off Mortgage On Burned Down Home, Then Moves To Foreclose Anyway; Responds To Homeowner's Complaint By Purportedly Selling Loan To 3rd Party; Homeowner Left In Limbo, Sale Date Imminent

In Robertson County, Tennessee, WKRN-TV Channel 2 reports:

• A Robertson County woman is fighting to keep her former home, which burned down, from being foreclosed on after she paid her mortgage off in April.
  
  Tracye Bryant’s Cedar Hill home caught fire December 18, 2015. The home was a complete loss. Her insurance company paid the home off by sending a check directly to her lender, Bank of America in April 2016.
  
  Bryant got a copy of the cancelled check that showed it was cashed by Bank of America the next day and on the back of the check the reason printed by the bank was “Payoff.”
  
  But in May she received a statement from the bank stating her mortgage payment was late.
  
  When she called to ask why, the representative told her they needed a letter of intent to direct the money to pay off her mortgage. Bryant showed News 2 a copy of the letter she sent.
  
  She also showed a copy of an adjuster’s report Bryant said Bank of America asked for to clear the account. All of it was sent to the bank, according to Bryant.
  
  Bryant said she began getting calls from Bank of America representatives for delinquent payments. “Every time they called, I had to repeat my story that the loan was paid and I had the cancelled check,” she said. “Each time it was a different person and they would tell me that someone would look into it.”
  
  At the end of May, Bryant found out Bank of America sold her mortgage to a second party company.
  
  “I asked, ‘How can you sell a mortgage that is paid?’” she said. “They told me they could no longer talk to me about the account because the other company owns it.”
  
  Bryant contacted the other company and again had to send in all her documentation and spent weeks talking to various representatives.
  
  In June, her son said a man was on the property and told him the home was to be foreclosed on and he was hired to “clean it up.”
  
  Bryant called the second company and they showed a foreclosure date of July 19. “I can’t even think of a word,” she said. “It makes you want to sit down and cry really.”
  
  She continued, “When you lose a home to fire or whatever and the insurance pays it off, that should be it.”
  
  Meanwhile Bryant is exhausted, angry and sad because first she lost her home to a fire and now a foreclosure on her credit could cause more financial damage. “I work hard to keep my credit score high,” she said. “They are going to put that on there and the loan has been paid off.”
  
  News 2 reached out to Bank of America earlier this week.
  
  A representative told News 2 they are looking into the account. We contacted the representative again Wednesday and are still waiting to hear back.
  
  “It is hurtful,” Bryant said. “It is a lot of things and a lot of emotions. I would hate to think that they are doing this to other people.”
  
  Bryant has filed a complaint against Bank of America with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). The government agency says on its website that it makes sure banks, lenders and other financial companies treat you fairly.
  
  According to the CFPB, 97 percent of consumers get a timely reply when the agency sends a complaint to the institution.
  
  In fact, Bryant got a call the day after she filed her complaint and received a letter from a Bank of America employee who said she would be the point person to handle her complaint.

Source: Woman fights foreclosure after fire destroys home.