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. Recoveries for her clients, who own at least 25 percent of so-called voting rights in the deals, may reach “many billions of dollars,” she said.

MetLife, TCW

MetLife Inc., the biggest U.S. life insurer, is part of the group represented by Gibbs & Bruns, said the people, who declined to be identified because the discussions aren’t public. TCW Group Inc., the manager of $110 billion in assets, expects to join BlackRock, the world’s largest money manager, and Pimco, which runs the biggest bond fund, in the group, the people said.

The group is among investors seeking to use misstatements by sellers, such as faulty appraisals, about the quality of loans packaged into securities to force repurchases, the people said.

Countrywide also hasn’t met its contractual obligations as a servicer because it hasn’t asked for repurchases itself and is taking too long with foreclosures, either because of document or process mistakes or because it doesn’t have enough staff to evaluate borrowers for loan modifications, Patrick said. If the issues aren’t fixed within 60 days, BNY Mellon should declare Countrywide in default of its contracts, she said.

Trustee Duties

“The letter states a demand directed to Countrywide to cure the defaults,” said Kevin Heine, a spokesman for BNY Mellon. “It does not ask BNY Mellon to take any action. BNY Mellon will continue to perform its duties as trustee.”

Charlotte, North Carolina-based Bank of America will “defend our shareholders” by disputing any unjustified demands it buy back defective mortgages, Chief Executive Officer Brian T. Moynihan said today.

Most claims “don’t have the defects that people allege,” Moynihan said on Bloomberg Television, referring to so-called putbacks, in which guarantors or investors in mortgage-backed securities ask to return bad loans. “We end up restoring them, and they go back in the pools.”

Jeffrey V. Smith, a spokesman for the New York Fed, declined to comment. In August, Jack Gutt, another spokesman, said that it was involved in “multiple efforts related to exercising our rights as investors,” which would “support our primary goal of maximizing the value of these portfolios on behalf of the American taxpayer.”

Repurchase Costs

Mark Porterfield, a spokesman for Newport Beach, California-based Pimco, Brian Beades, a spokesman for New York- based BlackRock, and Peter Viles, a spokesman for Los Angeles- based TCW, declined to comment. John Calagna, a spokesman for New York-based MetLife, also declined to comment.

“We continue to review and assess the letter, and have a number of question about its content, including whether these investors have standing to bring these claims,” Bank of America Chief Financial Officer Charles H. Noski said today on a conference call with analysts. “We continue to believe the servicer is in compliance with the servicing obligations.”

The letter covered 115 separate mortgage securitizations, with $105 billion in original balances, from “eight investors purportedly owning interests in these transactions,” Noski said.

Banks’ costs from repurchases of mortgages in securities without government backing may total as much as $179.2 billion, Compass Point Research and Trading LLC analyst Chris Gamaitoni estimated in August, including costs related to lawsuits against underwriters.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. analysts said in an Oct. 15 report the costs may reach $80 billion, reduced in part by investors’ difficulties in getting trustees to act and a typical requirement that misstatements about loan quality were material.

Losses on the mortgages packaged into bonds come amid “persistently high unemployment and other economic trends, diminishing the likelihood that any loan defect should one exist at all, was the cause of the loan’s default,” Noski said.