Oak Park Real Estate & Estate Planning Blog

If you recently filed for Chapter 13 bankruptcy in part to avoid foreclosure, and if your mortgage was with Wells Fargo, it is important to know about a recent lawsuit that alleges fraudulent practices by the bank. In short, according to an article from CNN Money , a married couple who filed for Chapter 13 bankruptcy have alleged that Wells Fargo pushed through “stealth” mortgage modifications after bankruptcy. These new modification terms did in fact modify monthly mortgage payments, but they also extended the terms of the mortgages, resulting in hundreds of thousands of dollars in interest. Individuals who have filed for Chapter 13 bankruptcy in Illinois could be impacted by the outcome of the case. To better understand the stakes, let us tell you a bit more about the current case against Wells Fargo. Debtors Allege that Wells Fargo Modified Mortgage without Authorization In 2014, Christopher and Allison Cotton had a mortgage with 16 remaining years of paymen...

If you pay attention to news concerning big banks in America, you might already have heard about a big consumer fraud matter. Wells Fargo, the biggest bank in the United States, “scrambled . . . to contain the fallout from an investigation that found its employees set up 2 million fake accounts that customers didn’t ask for to get bonuses,” according to an article in the Chicago Tribune . Wells Fargo customers did not ask to open a new account, yet they had accounts fraudulently set up in their names by bank employees. Since the financial crisis began in 2008, most of the big banks in our nation have paid fines and settlements to remedy bad and sometimes fraudulent banking practices. Yet, as the article suggests, the recent issue “involved pervasive misconduct involving thousands of bank employees,” which begs the question of whether fines are sufficient to prevent “bad behavior” among banks and their employees. Moreover, what are banks doing to address the important issu...

If you are thinking about filing for Chapter 13 bankruptcy or are currently making payments as part of a consumer bankruptcy repayment plan, it is extremely important that you know the timing and amount of your monthly mortgage payment. Many consumers were negatively impacted when Wells Fargo Bank did not notify them of payment changes. According to a recent article in The Washington Post , Wells Fargo Bank agreed to a payment of $81.6 million “to settle claims that it failed to notify homeowners in bankruptcy of changes in their mortgage payments.” Notice Violations Impacted Nearly 70,000 Account Holders Allegations that Wells Fargo failed to let homeowners in bankruptcy know about payment changes were not referring only to a handful of customers. To be sure, “Wells Fargo acknowledged that it failed to file more than 100,000 payment-change notices on a timely basis,” and that it “failed to meet the deadline required in more than 18,000 escrow analyses.” All in all, th...