I didn’t shout over their free coffee. I waited until the executives finished smiling for the cameras about “helping families,” then I walked up with a folder and asked them to explain a phrase they clearly hoped I’d never learn: dual tracking.
Because “the two departments don’t talk to each other” isn’t an excuse. It’s a confession. Federal law — the CFPB’s mortgage servicing rules — flatly forbids a bank from foreclosing while a complete loan modification application is still under review. It’s called dual tracking, and it’s illegal precisely because banks kept doing exactly what they did to us: telling a struggling family to apply, then selling the house out from under them while they waited.
I had every page. The letter telling us to apply. The stamped proof our file was complete. The foreclosure sale dated while our application still sat “under review.” It wasn’t a mix-up between departments. It was a violation, in black and white.
I’d already filed with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and a housing attorney had taken our case. The man’s bored little smile disappeared when I said those rules out loud in front of the reporter beside me.
The wrongful sale was unwound. We got our home back, with damages the law provides when a servicer breaks those rules. And the CFPB found we weren’t the only family in Fresno they’d dual-tracked — others got their homes and their money back too.
He told me that’s just how it works — he never dreamed the way it actually works was written down to protect people like us.
My kids are back in their own rooms, in the only home they’ve ever known. We’re current now, on honest terms. And I keep that folder in a drawer by the door — not out of anger anymore, just as a reminder that doing everything right and keeping the proof of it is never a waste.