Tick-Tock

A clock starts ticking:

Pacific Investment Management Co., BlackRock Inc. and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York are seeking to force Bank of America Corp. to repurchase soured mortgages packaged into $47 billion of bonds by its Countrywide Financial Corp. unit, people familiar with the matter said.

A group of bondholders wrote a letter to Bank of America and Bank of New York Mellon Corp., the debt’s trustee, citing alleged failures by Countrywide to service loans properly, their lawyer said yesterday in a statement that didn’t name the firms. The New York Fed acquired mortgage debt through its 2008 rescues of Bear Stearns Cos. and American International Group Inc.

Investors are stepping up efforts to recoup losses on mortgage bonds, which plummeted in value amid the worst slump in home prices since the 1930s. Last month, BNY Mellon declined to investigate mortgage files in response to a demand from the bondholder group, which has since expanded. Countrywide’s servicing failures, including insufficient record keeping, may open the door for investors to seek repurchases by bypassing the trustee, said Kathy Patrick, their lawyer at Gibbs & Bruns LLP.

“We now are in a position where we have to start a clock ticking,” Patrick, who is based in Houston, said today in a telephone interview.

If the issues aren’t fixed within 60 days, BNY Mellon should declare Countrywide in default on its servicing contracts, Patrick said.

...Bank of America said in an August securities filing it had been dealing with a “very limited” number of requests to repurchase bad loans out of securities other than from bond guarantors. Capital One Financial Corp. Chief Financial Officer Gary Perlin said on a conference call today it has “seen virtually no repurchase activity from” home loans it sold into uninsured bonds from 2005 through 2008.

Mortgage-bond contracts are explicit in requiring repurchases of loans when their quality fails to match sellers’ promises, said Scott Simon, Pimco’s head of mortgage bonds. The contracts also call for trustees and servicers to ask lenders to take back debt under those circumstances, he said.

“They’re contractually required to enforce the reps and warranties,” Simon said today in a telephone interview. He declined to comment on his firm’s actions.