Sorry we helped you lose your home — here’s $20,000.
Wells Fargo has admitted a “calculation error” may have led to as many as 400 struggling homeowners needlessly losing their homes to foreclosure.
The mistake in a mortgage-modification tool, discovered nearly three years ago, wrongly factored lawyers’ fees into the formula put forth by the government to determine if a homeowner would qualify for a federally-backed program, like 2009’s Home Affordable Modification Program, or HAMP, Wells Fargo revealed in a regulatory filing.
As a result of the bank’s error, as many as 625 customers were “incorrectly denied a loan modification,” Wells said — with 400 then having their homes foreclosed upon.
The homeowners affected by the bank’s glitch were in the foreclosure process between April 13, 2010, and October 20, 2015, the bank said in the filing on Friday.
After “substantially” completing a review of the glitch, Wells set aside $8 million in the second quarter to “remediate customers whose modification decisions may have been affected by the calculation error.”
Just counting those homeowners foreclosed upon, the $8 million amounts to $20,000 per customer.
New York bankruptcy lawyer Linda Tirelli, who represents troubled homeowners, told The Post that “seems like such a small amount.” The increased value of a home that was needlessly foreclosed on should be part of any remedy, she said.
“We will continue to assess any customer harm and provide remediation as appropriate,” Wells said in the filing, noting it will continue to investigate possible other victims — and that more could be uncovered.
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