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Speaker 1: During the pandemic, the US government offered relief to some homeowners,

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Speaker 1: including thousands of military veterans. They were granted a temporary

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Speaker 1: pause to their mortgage payments so they could stay in

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Speaker 1: their homes during tough times. Now that the pause has lifted,

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Speaker 1: those who participated in this program thought they'd be able

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Speaker 1: to pick up paying where they'd left off. Instead, Bloomberg's

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Speaker 1: Polymasens and Caleb Melby report that veterans across the country

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Speaker 1: are now stuck in a nightmarish battle with lenders that

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Speaker 1: are threatening to foreclose on their homes.

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Speaker 2: So there are four thousand foreclosures that have already happened

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Speaker 2: to veterans, and there's another six thousand veterans at risk

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Speaker 2: of losing their homes because they're in active foreclosure.

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Speaker 3: The Veterans Administration does have so many programs that are

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Speaker 3: designed to get veterans in homes and keep them there.

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Speaker 3: So for them to be falling through the cracks like

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Speaker 3: this and for them to be treated this way within

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Speaker 3: that environment was really startled to us.

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Speaker 1: I'm west Kasova today on the big take, is anyone

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Speaker 1: stepping up to help these bets.

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Speaker 2: The story really starts at the beginning of the pandemic, which,

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Speaker 2: if you can remember all the way back then, there

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Speaker 2: was a lot of panic that people were not going

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Speaker 2: to be able to work and they were not going

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Speaker 2: to be able to pay for their mortgage bill and

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Speaker 2: lose their homes. And Congress acted both very quickly and

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Speaker 2: a little bit chaotically to try to fend that off.

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Speaker 2: And one of the elements of the Cares Act, which

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Speaker 2: was a giant piece of policy that tried to tackle

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Speaker 2: a lot of different problems that the pandemic created. One

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Speaker 2: of the things that tried to tackle was mortgage payments,

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Speaker 2: and it created a forbearance system, which effectively allows people

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Speaker 2: to not make mortgage payments while also not facing the

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Speaker 2: risk of foreclosure. So it doesn't mean that your mortgage

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Speaker 2: goes away or that you don't owe that money. It

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Speaker 2: just means that for the duration of your forbearance period,

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Speaker 2: you do not have to pay that bill. So that's

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Speaker 2: basically what Congress came up with, and after they came

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Speaker 2: up with it, the entire mortgage industry had to figure

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Speaker 2: out very very quickly how to implement it for millions

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Speaker 2: of borrowers across the country at once.

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Speaker 3: What we found was this pattern of incredibly frustrated borrowers,

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Speaker 3: people who thought they were getting a break and were

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Speaker 3: happy to get a break. They got up to twelve

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Speaker 3: months of not paying their monthly mortgage bill, but when

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Speaker 3: they exited that forbearance period, they had to craft these

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Speaker 3: plans to make those payments. And while they tried in

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Speaker 3: good faith to put those arrangements together, they were frustrated

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Speaker 3: time and again by these essentially like paperwork delays that

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Speaker 3: in many cases pushed them into first delinquency which destroyed

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Speaker 3: their it, and then also sometimes foreclosure.

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Speaker 1: Caleb.

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Speaker 3: A lot of those borrowers were former members of the

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Speaker 3: Armed Forces who took advantage of loan availability for veterans

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Speaker 3: through the Veterans Administration. That's right, So we're looking at

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Speaker 3: people from across the Armed services, a lot of veterans,

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Speaker 3: a lot of folks on disability after serving, who had

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Speaker 3: these federally backed mortgages through the Veterans Administration that were

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Speaker 3: eligible and took advantage of the program.

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Speaker 2: And maybe it's helpful to know a little bit about

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Speaker 2: how VA loans actually work. So a lot of people

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Speaker 2: associate their mortgage process with a pretty stressful, chaotic one,

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Speaker 2: and it's not to say that the VA loan process isn't,

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Speaker 2: but the VA has put up some guardrails to try

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Speaker 2: to make it a little bit easier. They have a

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Speaker 2: couple policies in place that are a bit unusual, and

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Speaker 2: one of those policies is the loan to value, which

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Speaker 2: allows the veteran to borrow up to one hundred and

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Speaker 2: three percent of the loan. That is relatively unusual as

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Speaker 2: compared to a traditional mortgage, where that person might not

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Speaker 2: be able to borrow quite as much. So down payments

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Speaker 2: are not always necessary in VA loans, which is a

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Speaker 2: little bit unusual, but it's meant to help the veteran.

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Speaker 1: And Polly, you're right that banks like these mortgages where

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Speaker 1: they don't have to require a big down payment.

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Speaker 2: Well, I would say that non banks like these because

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Speaker 2: the vast majority of VA lending in this country is

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Speaker 2: actually done by non banks. It's over eighty percent of

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Speaker 2: VA loans are written by non bank lenders, and one

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Speaker 2: of the reasons for that is because after two thousand

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Speaker 2: and eight, a lot of banks left the space entirely.

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Speaker 2: And John Bell, from the VA Lending Program, who we

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Speaker 2: speak to, he actually said something to the effect of

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Speaker 2: you know, thank goodness that we had these non banks

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Speaker 2: to step in. So there is definitely the element of

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Speaker 2: liking writing these loans, but there's also the reality that

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Speaker 2: a lot of veterans do not get their loans from

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Speaker 2: a traditional bank anymore.

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Speaker 1: Let's take them inute here and explain the difference between

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Speaker 1: a bank and a non bank.

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Speaker 3: So banks deposit taking institution regulated by the FDIC and others.

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Speaker 3: Non banks down take deposits not regulated by the FDIC

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Speaker 3: and other aspects of the US financial regulatory apparatus. Their

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Speaker 3: primary regulator is the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the regulator

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Speaker 3: that was born out of the two thousand and eight

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Speaker 3: financial crisis, and so they don't have all the same

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Speaker 3: capital requirements and other regulations. But the big difference is

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Speaker 3: they are not banks.

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Speaker 2: And from like a human borrower perspective, the way that

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Speaker 2: you might interact with that differently is a bank mortgage

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Speaker 2: is a bank that you can typically walk into. It

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Speaker 2: might be on main street and you might already have

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Speaker 2: your checking account there, so it's pretty easy to set

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Speaker 2: up your direct deposit for your mortgage, whereas a non

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Speaker 2: bank you often find them online or you might find

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Speaker 2: them through a mortgage broker who has the ability to

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Speaker 2: work with a bunch of different non banks, and that

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Speaker 2: person you might know for meat, you might only deal

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Speaker 2: with them on the innet, though occasionally they do have

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Speaker 2: storefronts to try to kind of create more of a

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Speaker 2: community feel. But the way that people find these different

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Speaker 2: kinds of lending options tend to be different.

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Speaker 1: So we had this big federal program to give people

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Speaker 1: mortgage relief during the pandemic, but then it came time

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Speaker 1: to once again start paying in these banks and non

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Speaker 1: banks had to restructure the payments for that missing year,

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Speaker 1: and what happened.

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Speaker 3: Then it was a mess, to put it lightly. So

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Speaker 3: depending on the organization, you're looking at more staff, regulations,

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Speaker 3: and guidelines. You have different rules for different loans, backed

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Speaker 3: by different components of the federal government. So you have

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Speaker 3: borrowers who, as Polly was saying earlier, especially for VA loans,

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Speaker 3: getting their mortgage was comparatively easy compared to a lot

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Speaker 3: of homeowners, and now they're going through this very confusing

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Speaker 3: process just to try to keep paying their mortgage again,

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Speaker 3: and they keep on running in to an array of

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Speaker 3: roadblocks that delay, delay, delay, lead them into delinquency and

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Speaker 3: sometimes foreclosure.

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Speaker 1: And Polly, how many people are we talking about who

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Speaker 1: took advantage of this big COVID program.

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Speaker 2: So about eight and a half million homeowners use the

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Speaker 2: program overall, and of those, about four hundred and forty

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Speaker 2: five hundred thousand were VA loan recipients, so it's a

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Speaker 2: pretty substantial chunk. Obviously, there's a lot of mortgages in

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Speaker 2: the US, but when you have eight and a half

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Speaker 2: million people trying to figure out how to recalculate their

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Speaker 2: mortgage all just about at the same time, I'm sure

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Speaker 2: that that is quite an undertaking.

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Speaker 1: Caleb, why did you concentrate on veterans in particular, because

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Speaker 1: there are a lot of people who aren't veterans who

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Speaker 1: are also trying to restructure their mortgages who took advantage

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Speaker 1: of this program.

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Speaker 3: We focused on veterans for the reason that the Veterans

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Speaker 3: Administration does have so many programs that are designed, as

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Speaker 3: Polly said, to get veterans in a home homes and

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Speaker 3: keep them there. The government has spent a lot of

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Speaker 3: time in policy and money to make that happen. So

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Speaker 3: for them to be falling through the cracks like this

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Speaker 3: and for them to be treated this way within that

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Speaker 3: environment was really startling to us.

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Speaker 1: Caleb. You found a lot of people who are going

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Speaker 1: through this very difficult time trying to keep hold of

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Speaker 1: their house when the bank is essentially telling them they're

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Speaker 1: going to come take it away.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right. Whenever I reach out to folks in

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Speaker 3: this sort of financial distress, I'm never quite sure what

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Speaker 3: sort of reception I'm going to get. But people were

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Speaker 3: very responsive to us because they felt like they had

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Speaker 3: been ripped off, and we started to develop the sense

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Speaker 3: of these sort of rhyming things that were happening from

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Speaker 3: borrower to borrower. So that could include getting shipped an

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Speaker 3: envelope that's supposed to have your loan modification agreement in

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Speaker 3: it and it coming to your door empty. It could

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Speaker 3: mean getting asked to submit it financial records or other

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Speaker 3: documents that you've submitted two or three or four times

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Speaker 3: before already. It could mean having your loan modification agreement approved,

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Speaker 3: only to get a call later and being told it

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Speaker 3: actually isn't. And all of these things lead to pushing

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Speaker 3: people out closer and closer to delinquency. And when you're delinquent,

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Speaker 3: it's an immediate, huge scarlet letter on your credit and

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Speaker 3: sometimes they were pushed into foreclosure. They would learn in

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Speaker 3: some cases from the local court system that they were

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Speaker 3: being foreclosed on by their lender.

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Speaker 2: So one of the things that would happen to borrowers

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Speaker 2: in some of these cases is they would receive a

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Speaker 2: lump sum payment demand, which basically allows them to not

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Speaker 2: be foreclosed upon. But the reality is that a lot

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Speaker 2: of people do not have twenty thirty forty thousand dollars

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Speaker 2: in cash to pay up all at once, and that

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Speaker 2: is what they would in these cases have to do

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Speaker 2: to avoid losing their home. So there are four thousand

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Speaker 2: foreclosures that have already happened to veterans, and there's another

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Speaker 2: six thousand veterans at risk of losing their homes because

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Speaker 2: they're an active foreclosure.

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Speaker 1: We should note that not all of the foreclosure actions

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Speaker 1: were the result of loan modification denials, but the figures

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Speaker 1: also don't include thousands of borrowers who paid a lump

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Speaker 1: sum to avoid foreclosure.

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Speaker 3: For these non bank lenders, specifically, servicing revenue is a

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Speaker 3: big portion of their business, and if a borrower were

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Speaker 3: to go into forbearance, they're not going to be capturing

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Speaker 3: that revenue anymore. So a lot of them in the

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Speaker 3: early pandemic were quite alarmed by the fact that homeowners

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Speaker 3: were getting this bailout, but lenders themselves were not. Lenders

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Speaker 3: and servicers were not. And J Bray, the CEO of

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Speaker 3: mister Cooper, one of the largest servicers, went onto CNBC

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Speaker 3: at the time and raised concerns about this. Now, in

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Speaker 3: the end, interest rates drop precipitously to help support the

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Speaker 3: economy during the pandemic, and that meant homeowners across the

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Speaker 3: country millions of them went and refinanced their loans, and

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Speaker 3: that ended up creating a pretty significant revenue stream that

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Speaker 3: prevented any sort of serious damage within the mortgage lending

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Speaker 3: and servicing industry. But it was a very big concern

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Speaker 3: in those very early weeks and months.

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Speaker 1: When we come back the stories of veterans caught up

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Speaker 1: in this mortgage limbo. Caleb, you spoke to a number

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Speaker 1: of veterans who are going through this, trying to avoid foreclosure,

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Speaker 1: kangling with their lender over trying to figure out a

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Speaker 1: new payment plan. What did they tell you?

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Speaker 3: A word that gets overused a lot these days is

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Speaker 3: kafka esque. But for a lot of them, I think

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Speaker 3: That's really what it felt like. Imagine you are trying

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Speaker 3: in good faith to close this documentation you need to

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Speaker 3: keep your home, and just finding that it is not

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Speaker 3: happening for a variety of reasons. So a lot of

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Speaker 3: them were very upset, very stressed. We talked to folks

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Speaker 3: like Rosie Bennett, a seventy nine year old widow of

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Speaker 3: a Navy veteran out in Idaho, and she has multiple sclerosis,

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Speaker 3: and she was telling us about how this was incredibly

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Speaker 3: stressful and worsening her conditions as she tried really, really

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Speaker 3: hard to close this documentation.

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Speaker 4: My husband and I we were living here for twenty

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Speaker 4: eight years in this home. We were in the middle

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Speaker 4: of a modification and they were trying to send me

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Speaker 4: the form to fill out all the contracts and stuff.

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Speaker 4: So they sent me this envelope. I received it with

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Speaker 4: ups They opened the envelope and there was just another

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Speaker 4: envelope in there with nothing else. So I didn't know

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Speaker 4: what that was supposed to mean. And you know, so

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Speaker 4: I called the company and they said they were going

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Speaker 4: to send me another one, and they never did.

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Speaker 1: And what happened after that when she contacted her lender.

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Speaker 3: This is the other maddening thing is all of these

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Speaker 3: borrowers get into these he said. She said, who did?

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Speaker 3: Who didn't? Fights with their lenders, and their lenders have

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Speaker 3: these systems of, you know, different times we've called you,

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Speaker 3: and they're very often robo calls, or different times we've

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Speaker 3: sent you a letter, and most homeowners are just not

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Speaker 3: prepared to have an entire docket at the ready to

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Speaker 3: have these conversations with their lenders because they weren't expecting

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Speaker 3: to have to fight with a lender to continue to

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Speaker 3: pay their mortgage. So at one point, Rosie gets this

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Speaker 3: letter that says you've run out of time, you haven't

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Speaker 3: submitted your documents, and you need to pay thirty three

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Speaker 3: thousand dollar, which is not money that she has. So

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Speaker 3: in Rosie Bennett's case, she hired an attorney, a rather

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Speaker 3: high profile when a guy by the name of Mark

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Speaker 3: dan the former Ohio Attorney General who specializes in cases

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Speaker 3: just like this. Rosie told us that as soon as

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Speaker 3: she hired a lawyer, her lenders started to treat her

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Speaker 3: very differently. She felt she was suddenly getting some modicum

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Speaker 3: of respect that she was not getting before.

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Speaker 1: And so where is that case now?

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Speaker 2: So we reached out to all of the lenders in

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Speaker 2: this story, including Rosie's PhH and the other servicer who

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Speaker 2: was involved with Rosie's loan, Devin Mule, which is no

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Speaker 2: longer involved with Rosie's loan. They both said that they

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Speaker 2: had complied with all the applicable laws and guidelines for

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Speaker 2: her loan, and PhH no longer intends to foreclose on Rosie.

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Speaker 2: One thing that's interesting about Rosie is she entirely accidentally

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Speaker 2: ended up in this situation. This home mortgage was originally

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Speaker 2: taken with the bank, the note has been sold several times,

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Speaker 2: the servicing is now with a different company. So you know,

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Speaker 2: her and her husband never could have known that they

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Speaker 2: would have ended up having their mortgage service and owned

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Speaker 2: by non bank lenders. When they began this process. They

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Speaker 2: began it in the way that a lot of people

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Speaker 2: before two thousand and eight began their mortgage process at

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Speaker 2: a traditional bank.

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Speaker 1: And this is something that happens a lot, right where

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Speaker 1: you started mortgage for someone and then it's sold several

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Speaker 1: times and you have no say in who that mortgage

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Speaker 1: is sold to and who's going to be servicing it.

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Speaker 2: That's right, Yeah, And sometimes you know the original person

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Speaker 2: who wrote the loan might want to retain the servicing,

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Speaker 2: but there's no standard for that in the US. There's

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Speaker 2: nothing requiring it be done a certain way. So it's

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Speaker 2: entirely possible by the time you're done paying off your

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Speaker 2: home or by the time you're selling it, that you

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Speaker 2: will have gone through a half dozen servicers and people

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Speaker 2: holding your loan.

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Speaker 1: And Caleb Rosie Bennett wasn't the only person who spoke

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Speaker 1: to is in this situation.

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Speaker 3: That's right. Another person we spoke to was Makeita Young.

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Speaker 5: My name is Makita tay Young, and I am a

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Speaker 5: major in the North Carolina National Guard. I am a

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Speaker 5: chemical officer. So I purchased my home in Charlotte, North

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Speaker 5: Carolina in twenty eighteen, and I would have to say

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Speaker 5: it was such a momentous occasion because I just got

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Speaker 5: clear from cancer and it was something I wanted to

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Speaker 5: do for myself. And it's a beautiful house that since

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Speaker 5: right in front of Linda Lake, and I knew as

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Speaker 5: soon as I saw it online, I was going.

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Speaker 4: To get it.

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Speaker 3: She had a similar situation where she was just sending

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Speaker 3: in her documentation again and again, had her modification agreement

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Speaker 3: approved several times actually, and then it was suddenly not again,

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Speaker 3: which was incredibly maddening to her. And she did end

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Speaker 3: up paying her lump sum payment because she got to

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Speaker 3: the end of that road and she had no other options,

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Speaker 3: and luckily in her case, she was able to afford

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Speaker 3: to do so. But she was a very special borrower

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Speaker 3: insofar as that she was not going to let that

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Speaker 3: be the end of the road for her. She wanted answers,

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Speaker 3: she wanted to figure out what had happened, and she

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Speaker 3: took matters into her own hands, so she reached out

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Speaker 3: to the Department of Justice in her home state of

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Speaker 3: North Carolina to explain what happened. And what the NCDOJ

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Speaker 3: was able to do is they reached out to her lender,

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Speaker 3: mister Cooper, and they were like, hey, we heard this

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Speaker 3: about you. What happened? And mister Cooper responded, as a

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Speaker 3: lot of these lenders do, saying we tried to reach

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Speaker 3: her many times and she was non responsive. And for

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Speaker 3: a lot of borrowers, that's the end of the road.

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Speaker 3: That's where they lose. They don't have the documentation at

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Speaker 3: the ready to prove otherwise, But Makita did. She had

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Speaker 3: collated all of her phone records and all of her emails,

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Speaker 3: and she was able to show that mister Cooper's documentation

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Speaker 3: of their interactions was incomplete. And after she went through

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Speaker 3: that with the North Carolina Department of Justice, they rescinded

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Speaker 3: their claim to Experience and other credit agencies that she'd

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Speaker 3: been delinquent, and she was able to get her credit restored.

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Speaker 3: But this was after months of labor, essentially working as

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Speaker 3: her own advocate. And what did mister Cooper say about

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Speaker 3: that it spoke to them for Mister Cooper told us

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Speaker 3: that Makita Young's application had been denied after all of

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Speaker 3: her documents had been received, and that the company is

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Speaker 3: committed to finding solutions to keep customers in their homes.

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Speaker 5: I pass all these billboards onto all the cities I

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Speaker 5: travel to, whether I'm going to drill or a training mission.

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Speaker 5: It says we will never forget support, help honor the veteran.

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Speaker 5: And the one thing that they told us that they

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Speaker 5: would guarantee us during our service, and that was to

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Speaker 5: honor us, was completely obliterated in a mass hall to

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Speaker 5: take homes.

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Speaker 1: Caleb for every customer like Rosie Bennett or Mackitda Young

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Speaker 1: who are able to push back. There are others who

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Speaker 1: aren't able to keep their homes, and you spoke to

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Speaker 1: some of them too.

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Speaker 3: One person we spoke to was Monica Rosario, another art

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Speaker 3: me veteran. Monica is somebody who was going through a

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Speaker 3: very hard time in her life. Already, she was going

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Speaker 3: through a divorce. She's a colon cancer survivor. She was

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Speaker 3: getting disability payments from the VA.

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Speaker 6: I served in the military for eight years on active duty,

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Speaker 6: and I was an engineer officer. I purchased a home

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Speaker 6: in August of twenty nineteen. I bought this house mainly

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Speaker 6: because I was married at the time and we decided

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Speaker 6: that we wanted to go ahead and start building a family,

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Speaker 6: so we wanted to buy a house.

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Speaker 3: And she went into another one of these sort of

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Speaker 3: maddening scenarios with her leunder a lender called Freedom Mortgage.

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Speaker 3: She lost her home. Rather than have it go to foreclosure,

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Speaker 3: she sold it in a short sale. We can see

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Speaker 3: on the listing for the home now that it's been

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Speaker 3: listed for a remarkable markup. I believe over fifty percent

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Speaker 3: from what she bought it for. And that's the worst

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Speaker 3: case scenario where a veteran is going through a hard time,

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Speaker 3: is not equipped to handle a document battle like this,

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Speaker 3: and then they lose their home.

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Speaker 1: And what did her lender have to say about that case?

361
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Speaker 3: Freedom Mortgage declined to comment.

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Speaker 1: After the break. Will the government step in to stop

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Speaker 1: more foreclosures from happening? Polly, You're right that lenders used

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Speaker 1: to do a lot to work with customers to avoid foreclosure,

365
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Speaker 1: and now that's no longer the case.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, foreclosure is frustrating, time consuming, and expensive.

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Speaker 2: So in order for a mortgage servicer to want to

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Speaker 2: go down that road, they need to have total confidence

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Speaker 2: that they'll be able to recoup their funds out of it.

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Speaker 2: That typically means that the property is not a short sale,

371
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Speaker 2: that it's not underwater. That all of a sudden really

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00:21:06,920 --> 00:21:10,320
Speaker 2: consistently became the case as real estate prices have absolutely

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Speaker 2: skyrocketed the last couple of years and they haven't really

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Speaker 2: gone down despite how interest rates are right now. So

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Speaker 2: you're dealing with a very different real estate market than

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Speaker 2: you were, for example, in two thousand and eight and

377
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Speaker 2: two thousand and nine, when the foreclosure crisis was also

378
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Speaker 2: really significant, but the real estate market looked entirely different.

379
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Speaker 2: So it used to be the very common adage that

380
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Speaker 2: foreclosure is never profitable. That is less the case today.

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Speaker 1: Partly, I guess a question a lot of people listening

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Speaker 1: to this might be asking themselves is where's the government?

383
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Speaker 1: Where's the Veterans Administration? Where's the consumer protection agency that

384
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Speaker 1: oversees some of these non bank lenders to help these veterans.

385
00:21:50,920 --> 00:21:53,639
Speaker 2: Yeah, so let's talk about what the government actually looks

386
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Speaker 2: like when it comes to regulating this. So the VA

387
00:21:57,040 --> 00:21:59,440
Speaker 2: is where you would think that a lot of regulation

388
00:21:59,640 --> 00:22:03,080
Speaker 2: could have happen, but that's not necessarily the case. They

389
00:22:03,160 --> 00:22:08,960
Speaker 2: cannot unilaterally decide that a lender doesn't qualify for VA loans.

390
00:22:09,600 --> 00:22:12,480
Speaker 2: The other big regulator that you often think of is

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Speaker 2: the CFPB, but the CFPB doesn't necessarily do as much

392
00:22:16,840 --> 00:22:20,919
Speaker 2: as you think they would. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

393
00:22:21,040 --> 00:22:23,880
Speaker 2: and the Department of Justice in December twenty twenty one

394
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Speaker 2: wrote a letter to mortgage servicers and basically said, hey,

395
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Speaker 2: we're watching and we're dealing with consumer complaints. But that's

396
00:22:31,640 --> 00:22:34,560
Speaker 2: a letter, right, It's not a regulatory action, and it's

397
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Speaker 2: certainly not preventing anyone from accessing the VA market going forward.

398
00:22:38,960 --> 00:22:42,879
Speaker 2: It's just a letter. So then you look at Congress

399
00:22:43,240 --> 00:22:48,720
Speaker 2: and they have not addressed this matter. So as a result,

400
00:22:48,800 --> 00:22:51,360
Speaker 2: you have this situation where a lot of people might

401
00:22:51,400 --> 00:22:54,200
Speaker 2: be watching, but no one has actually done anything.

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Speaker 3: After that December twenty twenty one letter, all of the

403
00:22:58,480 --> 00:23:03,919
Speaker 3: problems that we've described continued to happen, and the CFPB

404
00:23:04,119 --> 00:23:09,200
Speaker 3: came back around in another report covering transactions through March

405
00:23:09,280 --> 00:23:12,640
Speaker 3: twenty twenty three of this year, where they said, functioning

406
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Speaker 3: the same thing, we are seeing this bad stuff happen.

407
00:23:16,520 --> 00:23:20,359
Speaker 3: As we understand it, borrowers cannot avoid this bad stuff

408
00:23:20,400 --> 00:23:24,000
Speaker 3: because they count on you, the lenders and servicers, to

409
00:23:24,280 --> 00:23:28,600
Speaker 3: duly execute these documents. But a problem with that is

410
00:23:29,080 --> 00:23:34,000
Speaker 3: CFPB did not name the lenders that identified as failing

411
00:23:34,119 --> 00:23:37,640
Speaker 3: to execute these agreements, and they kind of just said,

412
00:23:38,000 --> 00:23:41,240
Speaker 3: after we identified these problems, they instituted new policies and

413
00:23:41,240 --> 00:23:44,879
Speaker 3: procedures and the problem was fixed. Now Again, that was

414
00:23:44,920 --> 00:23:48,080
Speaker 3: for transactions through March of twenty twenty three, and we

415
00:23:48,200 --> 00:23:50,760
Speaker 3: know just from the borrowers that we talked to that

416
00:23:51,040 --> 00:23:54,800
Speaker 3: borrowers were still dealing with these problems after the fact.

417
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Speaker 3: So we talked to people who work in this space, consultants, lawyers,

418
00:23:59,280 --> 00:24:02,480
Speaker 3: advocates and they're really frustrated. They feel there's a lack

419
00:24:02,520 --> 00:24:05,480
Speaker 3: of accountability there and a lack of transparency.

420
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Speaker 1: And I'll add here that a spokesperson for the CFPB

421
00:24:10,760 --> 00:24:15,760
Speaker 1: said it doesn't make public its supervisory interactions with companies.

422
00:24:16,480 --> 00:24:18,920
Speaker 1: Probably you said that the VA doesn't have a mechanism

423
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Speaker 1: to decide which lenders to include and exclude, but you

424
00:24:22,720 --> 00:24:26,360
Speaker 1: also write that the VA has stepped in on behalf

425
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Speaker 1: of some borrowers to try to solve these problems.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so I think it's a good thing to contemplate,

427
00:24:33,040 --> 00:24:35,480
Speaker 2: like what the v's responsibility is and how much it

428
00:24:35,560 --> 00:24:38,560
Speaker 2: can or can't do. So they do have these financial

429
00:24:38,600 --> 00:24:41,240
Speaker 2: counselors that are meant to serve as an aid to

430
00:24:41,440 --> 00:24:45,320
Speaker 2: people who are the recipients of these loans, and they

431
00:24:45,520 --> 00:24:48,359
Speaker 2: do exist and they're there to help. But I think

432
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Speaker 2: what we've been hearing from the borrowers that Caleb spoke

433
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Speaker 2: with is that despite those services existing, they're not necessarily

434
00:24:54,960 --> 00:24:57,960
Speaker 2: the easiest to access, and they're also not necessarily the

435
00:24:58,160 --> 00:25:01,119
Speaker 2: easiest to actually get some thing from. And when we

436
00:25:01,160 --> 00:25:03,600
Speaker 2: spoke with the VA, one thing they said is, you know,

437
00:25:03,600 --> 00:25:05,320
Speaker 2: we want to keep people in homes We don't just

438
00:25:05,359 --> 00:25:07,040
Speaker 2: want to sell them a mortgage. We want to be

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Speaker 2: sure they actually are able to stay in that home

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Speaker 2: and that they need to reach out to us for help.

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Speaker 2: And I think that's something we've been contemplating as we

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Speaker 2: report the story, is how much is the veteran supposed

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Speaker 2: to be reaching out constantly versus how much are these

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Speaker 2: institutions supposed to be there to help them when something

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Speaker 2: goes wrong without them having to be proactive. It's totally

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Speaker 2: understandable if someone doesn't want to chase down help if

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Speaker 2: they're expecting it because they're in a position they didn't

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Speaker 2: ask for after a pandemic that no one thought.

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Speaker 1: Whatever happened, Caleb Polly, thanks so much for sharing your reporting.

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Speaker 1: Thanks for having us, we us, thank you thanks for

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Speaker 1: listening to us here at The Big Take. It's a

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Speaker 1: daily podcast from Bloomberg and iHeartRadio. For more shows from iHeartRadio,

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Speaker 1: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen,

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Speaker 1: and we'd love to hear from you. Email us questions

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Speaker 1: or comments to Big Take at Bloomberg dot net. The

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Speaker 1: supervising producer of The Big Take is Vicki Burgolina, our

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Speaker 1: senior producer is Katherine Fink. Sam Gebauer produced this episode.

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Speaker 1: Raphael Umsili is our engineer. Our original music was composed

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Speaker 1: by Leo Sidron. I'm west Kosova. We'll be back tomorrow

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Speaker 1: with another big take.