Bank of America Corp. has joined GMAC Mortgage and JPMorgan Chase & Co. in delaying some foreclosures while it investigates potential problems in the processing of court documents.
"We have been assessing our existing processes," said spokesman Dan Frahm in an e-mail Friday. "To be certain affidavits have followed the correct procedures, Bank of America will delay the process in order to amend all affidavits in foreclosure cases that have not yet gone to judgment in the 23 states where courts have jurisdiction over foreclosures."
The statement from B of A followed an Associated Press report that an employee of the company had signed off on thousands of foreclosure documents a month without reading them. The information had been revealed in a deposition of the employee earlier this year.
Similar issues have arisen at both GMAC, part of Ally Financial Inc., and JPMorgan Chase.
GMAC said last week that it had halted evictions and property sales in 23 states due to procedural defects it had discovered. Those defects also were described in the deposition of an employee who admitted to rubber-stamping thousands of foreclosures without verifying the information in them or signing them in the presence of a witness.
And on Wednesday, JPMorgan said it was halting 56,000 foreclosures in process because some employees "may have signed affidavits about loan documents on the basis of file reviews done by other personnel — without the signer personally having reviewed those loan files."
