Foreclosure Fighter

If you can't afford your mortgage payments and want to avoid foreclosure, try these tactics before it's too late and before you get caught up in a questionable foreclosure loophole:

       Don't ignore the problem.  Do not ignore the letters from your lender, contact them immediately and keep in contact with them. The further behind you become, the harder it will be to reinstate your loan and the more likely that you will lose your home.

• Call your lender. Let them in on what's going on in your life that's making it difficult for you to pay your mortgage. It's better to contact your lender early on before things slide out of control. Your lender will likely have some ideas for your situation such as a plan for refinancing a mortgage loan

• Contact the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and locate a real HUD-approved housing counseling agency. Call (800) 569-4287 or TDD (800) 877-8339 for the counseling agency nearest you.

• HUD recommends staying in your home while you work out the situation with your lender. HUD reports that if you abandon your home it can make you ineligible for counseling assistance.

Your lender and or a home counselor may be able to suggest some strategies that may help you avoid foreclosure. These tactics include:

• Selling your property
• Home mortgage refinancing loans
• Adjusting your payments
• Modifying your loan. 
  • LOAN MODIFICATION A loan modication is a great solution for a borrower who wants to stay in their property, but cannot afford the current payment due to a recent adjustment in the interest rate, or a hardship. In this situation, a Note Negotiation is an ideal solution because it will help lower the monthly payments to an affordable amount. Even if you are currently behind on your mortgage payments a note negotiation may be the right solution. The most common benefit to the homeowner is the prevention of foreclosure because loss mitigation works to either relieve the homeowner of the mortgage obligation or create a mortgage resolution that is financially sustainable for the homeowner. Lenders benefit by mitigating the losses they would incur through foreclosing on the homeowner. Immediate foreclosure creates a tremendous financial burden on the lender. Loss mitigation allows the lender to take a lesser loss right now in order to avoid the much greater losses caused by such foreclosures.
  • Please do your due diligence as a consumer to fully investigate the Loan Modification Company that you decide to work with. Checking the Better Business Bureau rating of a company is not enough. Please make sure that you also check with the Department of Real Estate for the state in which the company is doing business. The DRE will have detailed information about complaints and the licensing status of any modification companies that are legitimate.
  Read more: How to qualify for a Loan Modification | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/how_4737438_qualify-loan-modification.html#ixzz1FUVYKTYN
  
  Most companies will modify the loan in house or via the HAMP or other program.  See list below of those in the HAMP program.
• A partial claim allows the mortgagee to advance funds to the mortgagor in the form of a promissory note. So long as you are not delinquent over 12 months, the HUD may grant you a partial claim, which will make your mortgage payments current. It is essentially a second mortgage behind your existing lien that collects no interest, and is not due until you pay off your first mortgage or sell your home.
• Assistance from a private lender.
• Special forbearance, a forbearance plan is a payment plan set up by your bank or lender to ease or even suspend payments until you are current again. The bank or lender may work with you to avoid foreclosure with a special program that can get you back in the black, and out of the red.
• Pre-closure home sale, such as a short sale, will help you avoid a foreclosure, but unfortunately at the cost of selling your home, likely for much less than it’s worth.
• Deed-in-lieu of foreclosure  which allows you to sell your home back to the lender or bank that financed the mortgage. It is a great way to avoid foreclosure proceedings, but again results in the loss of your home. This must be voluntary, and both parties must act in good faith. The bank or lender must buy the property for at least fair market value, but will usually not proceed if that value exceeds the existing liens.

You can look at this useful article for financial help information: Financial Help to Stop Foreclosure

Visit or call HUD to learn more about your real options for avoiding foreclosure. Avoid loopholes that can get you out of foreclosure but may be scams or downright illegal. 

If you have no luck dealing with your Lender directly, Contact a Modification Company to discuss your options and different strategies to prevent foreclosure.