loan mod sign.jpgRULES TO FOLLOW!!

1. Call the Servicer and ask for modification or HAMP documents or go on their website and print them

2. Put all required documents together - fill them out completely and DATE THEM ALL and send them to the address stated on the website or the forms. Often they MUST be faxed.

3. Remember, if you are working with an attorney or any other third-party, that person/entity is going to have to have written permission from you to deal with the servicer/lender

4. Documents expire in 60 days. That means if you send in only some of the documents required, and then send in more, and then send in more because the servicer wants them, the first docs you submitted may be "stale dated" - just like bread - and need to be updated and resubmitted. This is where the process breaks down for most Homeowners.

5. Put aside the mortgage payment you were making or that you hope to be making. If you cannot save the money, you cannot save your home. Put simply, If a borrower is not disciplined enough to save the money to pay the mortgage, then there is no ability to pay the modified payment - so what is the point of going through all of the aggravation. Sometimes Life Is Not Fair.

6. If you get a package sent to you from the lender/servicer open it immediately. If documents are due on Wednesday of next week Make sure they get there by then. A day late and you are disqualified. Fair? Probably not but read the last sentence of Item 5 above.

The most frustrating part of this process for me is when I ask my client, "Okay, you are now 4 months behind because the payment went up. How much have you saved? Certainly if the payment was $700 per month and now it's $850, you have the $700 put aside for each of the four months the Bank returned your money!", and the client answers "Nothing - I paid other bills". At which point I ask "Well, how are you going to pay if you get a modification if you can't even save the money you had been paying?". Occasionally the client will say "I don't know". Most often I hear "Well, when I have the modification, I will be able to make the payments somehow". With trepidation I ask "How, if you can't make the payments now?".

This conversation takes place in my office or on my telephone at least twice every week and sometimes twice a day.

The people with whom you will speak are not bad people. They are doing a job, trying to avoid losing their house and are jsut asking the questions they must to avoid being fired. Don't rant at them - that assures NO COOPERATION. Remember that the folks at the top of the MBS pyramid are the folks "calling the shots" and they can't lose.

Author's Copyright by Richard I Isacoff, Esq., November 2011
rii@isacofflaw.com
http://www.isacofflaw.com