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