Case Status
On August 26, 2020, Keller Rohrback filed a class action complaint against Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. in the Northern District of California on behalf of Plaintiff Pamela Delpapa, a nationwide class and a California class. The suit alleges that Wells Fargo improperly placed borrower’s mortgages into forbearance, or extended the duration of forbearances, without their consent. In January 2021, Judge James Donato consolidated the Delpapa case with a similar case pending in the Northern District in California, Green et al. v. Wells Fargo Banks, N.A. et al., No. 20-cv-5296. In addition, the plaintiffs in the Delpapa and Green cases are coordinating with the plaintiffs in similar cases regarding unwanted Wells Fargo forbearances filed around the nation.
Case Overview
In March of 2020, Congress passed and the President signed into law the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (“CARES”) Act. It included several provisions to help mortgage borrowers, including a provision that permitted borrowers affected by COVID-19 to request that their mortgage loan be temporarily deferred through a process known as forbearance. When a borrower goes into forbearance, this is noted on their credit report, and can make it difficult or impossible to apply for other forms of credit, including new credit, home loans or refinancing.
However, as the Complaint alleges, Wells Fargo did not wait for many of its borrowers to request a forbearance, but rather did so automatically, often without the borrowers’ knowledge or consent. In fact, a Wells Fargo spokesperson admitted in a recent Law360 article that:
“For a short period during the early stages of the crisis, in an attempt to ensure that all customers received the payment relief they needed in the midst of unprecedented levels of customer calls, we made a decision to provide mortgage forbearances to certain customers who had made an inquiry or expressed hardship but had not explicitly requested a payment suspension” (emphasis added).
The Complaint alleges that Wells Fargo’s flagrant mismanagement of the CARES Act program has harmed borrowers, who have allegedly been denied opportunities to receive new credit, refinance mortgages at historically low rates, and purchase and sell homes among various other potential harms.
If Wells Fargo placed your mortgage into forbearance or extended a forbearance term without your consent, please contact us at consumer@kellerrohrback.com or (800) 776-6044 to learn more about this case.