The Naive and their mortgage modification
Anyone researching a mortgage modification on the internet can read stories of hapless distressed homeowners several times per week. Most of the blogs, and all of the responses I’ve posted, focus on the treachery of the banks in dealing with 99 percent of the mortgage modification applications.
It is time to focus on the mistakes the distressed homeowner makes in this process. The country has been dealing with the Home Affordable Mortgage Plan (HAMP) since last March. The cold hard fact in this situation is that the distressed homeowner must start accepting their responsibility in any failing of their mortgage modification application.
The linked article uses just about wrong assumption a distressed homeowner can make.
Yes, all the big banks are doing this. It does no good to identify any given treacherous lender. They’re all the same. Go find the statistics if you insist. If you have a mortgage with a small local bank or credit union, you stand a very good chance of getting satisfaction. If your mortgage lender has more than one floor to their building, you’re going to get the same treatment as in this article. Get used to it. Would you go to Las Vegas with one percent odds? Go for it.
Sending a letter to anyone in your government is like barking at the moon. Likewise contacting any administrator at your bank. Keep barking. Help yourself. Guilt is not a word the hoompahs understand. If you haven’t been watching all the obscene bonuses being paid to these clowns, you deserve to lose your home. Someone needs to slap your forehead. Ya wanna buy a bridge I have reserved for ya?
The simple fact is that the HAMP law exists. There is no one to enforce it except national attorneys like the ones I represent. We are 95% successful in negotiating beneficial, affordable mortgage modifications. If you want to keep your home with a new monthly mortgage payment that is approximately one-third of your new monthly income, that’s what we do. None of the free mortgage modification outfits can do that.
Chances of you getting any professional mail from your lender are slim and none. Venting your frustration will do nothing for your distressed mortgage situation. That and a buck will get you a cup of coffee. Be assured of one thing; whoever you actually talk to at your bank is exactly NOT the decision maker. Someone has your stuff today, (not tomorrow, though) and you will never speak to them. Only a national attorney can or will.
Being assigned to the “Executive Resolution Group” or whatever your bank calls their Distressed Mortgage Avoidance Dept. does nothing to stop a foreclosure. That is a separate department that does not communicate with the Distressed Mortgage Avoidance Dept. Unless you can figure out how to legally stop a foreclosure at the same time on your own, only a national attorney is assured of getting that done.
Having someone ‘assigned’ to your application means nothing. If you applied for a new mortgage or refinance, your potential lender would not lose anything. If your loan officer gets sick, someone else will assuredly pick up the slack. Unless a national attorney has the direct phone number of the responsible loss mitigator, your file will get passed around on purpose; just to stall the process. Your lender administrators are too busy whining to Congress about being deluged with applications. Get over it.
I have software certified by the U. S. Dept of Justice that qualifies you for a mortgage modification in 30 minutes. You don’t. The bank does too. But it takes them weeks or months to find it.
Our paperwork never, ever gets lost in the mail. Yours does. The bank’s does.
If you make a payment of any kind after applying for a mortgage modification, and before you have signed and confirmed receipt with your lender; you might just as well toss it to the wind. Or,whatever you do with money you don’t need or want. See? You’re mortgage wasn’t as distressed as you thought it was!
You have no business getting frustrated with the negligence of your bank in the mortgage modification process. Yes, they do want your home. You must know that. They have calculated that they’ll make more money foreclosing. Get used to it.
You’re lender will let you believe it is a mortgage modification even if they offer you a forebearance or reinstatement. Silly you. Caveat Emptor. Like the TV commercial with the toy horse – you didn’t ask.
You have two realistic chances of getting a true mortgage modification. Get the run-around for many, many months and then complain to your local press and hope they need one more bleeding-heart story to sell newspapers. It does work. I’ve seen it. I see it every week.
Or you can decide to hire an accomplished attorney like the ones I represent and get a true beneficial mortgage modification – without any of the frustration documented here.
Read it here
Posted on January 23, 2010 at 9:29 pm
The hardship letter needs to be written by the distressed mortgage holder. There are guidelines, but no attorney should be wrting it
Posted on January 23, 2010 at 4:42 am
It’s true that a loan modification attorney can properly prepare the written documentation needed to prove financial hardship in a clear manner.
An attorney also knows the exact requirements regarding the burden of proof needed to display financial hardship.
This will increase the odds that your request will be approved and approved timely which is what one would want in the first place. This will allow the borrower to engage in modified payments and travel once again on the path to financial freedom.