This should probably read

Wells Fargo may have used practices that prompted rivals to "halt" home repossessions

According to Naked Capitalism

GMAC announced a foreclosure halt in all 50 states; JP Morgan and Bank of America have stopped in 23 judicial foreclosure states.

Or have they? Florida is a judicial foreclosure state, and local reports suggest the banks are pressing forward with foreclosures. Note the inconsistencies between the statements of the bank employees versus the action on the ground.

Thinking about this from another direction, I think about my dad's office building. For years he had the mortgage with banks that kept getting bought out, eventually turning into CitiBank. They have routinely told him to forget it when he asks them for loans to do such things as repair the roof.

But, odds are that the fobbed off the original loan, or it was fobbed off long before Citi came in. As a person with a record of decades of good payment, his was probably sold with packages of trash loans to balance them out.

Citi could straighten it all out by giving him a new loan...which he wants since it would give him lower payments at a time when 3 different clients have run out on their leases over the last year, leaving a basically empty building except for the lessee who hasn't paid in two years...but he has been paying the mortgage out of his savings.

Citi could get a new clean note, my dad would get a lower payment, everyone happy. Are they that clever. No. They won't even consider giving him a new loan.

Never underestimate their intelligence, always underestimate their knowledge.

Frank Delaney ~ Ireland