Bank of America Joins the Foreclosure Delay Brigade

Bank of America (BAC) will delay foreclosures on properties in 23 states to review whether its employees signed off on foreclosure documents without reading them, making the largest U.S. bank at least the third in recent weeks to suspend foreclosures.

"To be certain affidavits have followed the correct procedures, Bank of America will delay the process in order to amend all affidavits in foreclosure cases that have not yet gone to judgment in the 23 states where courts have jurisdiction over foreclosures," BofA spokesman Dan Frahm said in a statement. He didn't estimate how many properties would be affected.

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The possibility that the sheer volume of documents prevented bank officials from reading, verifying or notarizing the documents they were signing is showing up in more cases. JPMorgan Chase (JPM) said earlier this week that it was delaying some foreclosures by a few weeks in order to better examine related documents.

And Ally Bank subsidiary GMAC Mortgage is also halting some foreclosures after it was disclosed that affidavits were signed by people who didn't personally know if the information in the affidavits were true, and at times, didn't get the affadavits notarized.