BofA Says Borrower Relief Under U.S. Deal Reaches $8.1 Billion

Bank of America Corp., the second- largest U.S. lender by assets, said updated figures show it has completed about $8.1 billion in homeowner relief under a nationwide settlement of foreclosure abuses.

The bank had $5.8 billion in short sales completed as of Aug. 21, $596 million in first-lien loan modifications finished and $1.7 billion in forgiveness on home-equity lines of credit, according to Dan Frahm, a spokesman for the Charlotte, North Carolina-based company.

Data released today by the Office of Mortgage Settlement Oversight showed the firm had $4.9 billion in relief closed as of June 30, almost all of it attributed to short sales. That figure was contained in a report from Joseph A. Smith, the monitor assigned to police the settlement reached in February by the nation’s biggest home lenders with regulators and state attorneys general.

“You are seeing a faster start on short sales completed under the agreement because that didn’t require a new process to be built, compared to first-lien modifications and the refinance program,” Frahm said. Eventually, most of the credits for Bank of America will be loan modifications, he said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Hugh Son in New York at hson1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: David Scheer at dscheer@bloomberg.net; Rick Green at rgreen18@bloomberg.net