Foreclosure Prevention and Short Sale Blog: Option One Assesses Short Sale Admin Fees

We don't see many Option One bank short sales.  That is a blessing.  They are 2nd only to Countrywide/Bank of America on my list of "who is the worst lender to do a short sale with".  Option one has been notorious for not reducing the short payoff below full market appraisal.  Now they have added another "what the heck are they doing?" step in their short sale process.

I submitted a short sale package to them about a week ago.  I got a call from a loss Mitigator within seven days - on a Saturday no less.  My optimism on a quick response was immediately crushed when I was told that "a short sale administrative fee" of 1% of the loan value had to be paided in order to start the short sale. She said this was a policy change that took effect in June of this year.  I was further confused when in almost the same sentence, I was told that "we can usually waive that fee if the homeowner can't pay".

Either the loss mitigator needs a refresher course in negotiation skills (you never make a demand followed by an immediate concession) or this policy is still so new that the mitigators are unsure how to process it.  Nevertheless, this is another lender policy that negatively impacts the short sale process.  If Option One starts to inforce this policy without waiver, they will further shut down their short sale process at the expense of the homeowner.

I only hope this is not a policy other lenders pick up on.