Why can’t these homeowners get their mortgages modified?
Why can’t these homeowners get their mortgages modified?
The article in ConsumerAffairs.com linked below chronicles a few more unfortunate homeowners that have been misled when applying for mortgage modification with their lender.
In this article, the lender they focused on was Litton Loan Servicing. This points out a major flaw in these homeowner’s strategy. As a loan servicer, Litton is almost powerless to sincerely negotiate a successful loan modification.
Many homeowners attempt their own moification using significant loss of property value as their main argument. This is a huge mistake. Change in home value is the very last consideration used by any lender. It is not an argument a homeowner should use. Change in property value is cited in any complete mortgage modification application, but the last consideration to be entered.
These unfortunate souls may easily have avoided foreclosure and losing their homes if they had contracted a US attorney like the ones I represent.
Among other points, a capable attorney would have held the lender/servicer accountable and stopped the foreclosure; in some instances kept it from ever being filed.
Of course Litton is going to take every complaint (from the press) seriously. And of course they have a department dedicated to resolving complaints. (It’s called the PR department.)
Above all, these unfortunate homeowners don’t have a phone number for a responsible underwriter in the loan servicing (or actual lender) company.
A US attorney is the only party that will ever get the responsible phone number.
Here again, the fuzzy, ill-advised argument that bankruptcy judges should be tasked with mortgage modifications. This is a result of muddy thinking. If the lender/servicers don’t have the staff to deal with the mountain of mortgage modification applications, how could the nation’s bankruptcy judges ever find the staff? They have full dockets already. This tired suggestion simply does not deal with reality.
The article does accurately note the devastation to a neighborhood with a foreclosure. The five surrounding houses are almost equally hurt by a single foreclosure.
Read it here
