When trying to stop your foreclosure with a mortgage
company, dealing with a lost mitigation department can be
frustrating to say the least. These ten steps will help
smooth out the process of stopping your foreclosure.
1. Contact your mortgage company. You don't' just contact
the normal phone number showing on your statements that
come with payment coupons. You can start with that number
but tell them you are having financial problems and need to
work out the problem. The odds are high your mortgage
company is recording the call and just notified them of the
problem, making a record that you took proactive steps
toward resolution.
2. Ask for Loss Mitigation when talking to your Mortgage
Company. They might try to deflect you from the Loss
Mitigation and apply a great deal of pressure (they have
training in doing this), to bring your loan current, just
be persistent, and keep repeating you are requesting the
number for the Loss Mitigation Department.
3. Keep detailed records of all transactions, even
collection calls. This is important if you have to go to
court against the mortgage company. This means every phone
call, every telefax, every email, every traceable mail
receipt you sent, every piece of paper correspondence they
sent.
4. Once you've obtained the magic Loss Mitigation phone
number, phone them and ask what steps you need to follow
and any forms or application you need to fill out to get a
loan modification or approval for a Short Sale (selling the
property for an amount that is less than you owe the
mortgage company). Getting the forms or application is
important because the process generally cannot even start
until they receive them.
5. Choose your course of action. Do you want a temporary
reduction to get over a short term money problem? Or do
you need a permanent solution like a Short Sale (see number
4 above defining Short Sale)?
6. Fill out all forms required plus whatever is relevant
for your case.
7. Keep originals of all your paperwork. You can almost
count on your mortgage company losing the paperwork you
send them. In fact they will not only lose it once, it's
very probable they will lose your documents, or parts of
total document package, multiple times. Do not allow this
to frustrate you into giving up on the process. Much of
this is going to be a test of persistence and patience.
Don't take it personally. In the current market the Loss
Mitigation staff is handling unprecedented numbers of
requests.
8. Put your name, loan number, and contact information on
headers areas (or margins) of every single piece of paper
you submit. Again, Loss Mitigation are all but buried
under avalanches of paper during this mortgage crisis, and
the chances of your document making it back without
originals increases dramatically if all this information is
on every piece of paper.
9. Use a method of shipment that provides you tracking and
a receipt, preferably a receipt that requires an actual
signature at the destination, when you send your documents
to your mortgage company. This step most likely will do
nothing to speed up the process, but it will be vital in
protecting you if you are in litigation situation with the
mortgage company.
10. Wait for the call. If the Loss Mitigation Department
tells you to contact them for an update once a week, make
sure you put on your calendar to make that call each week.
Expect progress to be slow, they have huge backlog of paper
and not enough people to wade through it.
In conclusion, the biggest bit of advice I can impart is
don't get impatient with Loss Mitigation staff. Their
department is overloaded and understaffed. Do what they ask
and be courteous; otherwise your paperwork just might drop
to the bottom of their every increasing piles of paperwork,
after you already waited 60 days to be assigned someone to
talk to you. Patience with the slowness of the process and
have to resubmit documents repeatedly will give you the
biggest advantage over other applicants in your same
situation. It is easier to be patient if you know what to
expect.
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MJ Jensen has studied Real Estate from the Homeowners
perspective for over 20 years. Most recently due to the
nature of the Mortgage crisis, he has turned his focus to
techniques to keep homeowners out of Foreclosure. You can
visit his site at
http://www.stopbankforeclosurestips.com/free_report
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