I know a fair amount.
This isn’t a topic to be handled anecdotally (”he told me that” “I thought that”) nor indirectly. The woman has to have her actual papers (could be scans of same) and has to present them to someone knowledgeable.
Many people use the term “underwater” on a mortgage to mean she is “behind on her mortgage payments”. They are not the same. That’s but one example among 473 why these things cannot be handled indirectly. Because people mean different things when they use certain words. Like liberals.
I can tell you that she can probably expect zero cooperation from the B of A. But there are far too many aspects and details to provide a remote assessment. It does nobody any good.
She's definitely underwater. She bought at the peak of the bubble and her house is worth maybe a little over half what she paid. But she's tried to do the honorable thing. It's just that she's not making as much money as she was.