Faces Of Foreclosure

A significant number of our families who are facing home loss by the agents of lenders are America’s senior citizens; these individuals are the very people who have spent 40 or 50 years working and paying taxes to underwrite our society, including underwriting the recent bank bailouts.

Emotional abuse includes: “Subjecting an individual to fear, isolation or serious emotional distress.”

Few things are worse than losing your home, particularly one you have been in for decades. Emotional abuse also includes “Verbal assaults, threats or intimidation.”

One of Marin Family’s Action’s members (image right) was taken from her home, handcuffed and sent to the county jail. This woman is A 74-year-old California native with degrees in economics and welfare from University of California at Berkeley. No notice was given. Earlier that week her pacemaker was replaced.

When asked what it was like to be in jail, she said she was “stunned as the reality of my circumstance had not yet sunk in.” Because her pacemaker had been replaced earlier that week, stress was to be avoided. Her arms were already bruising from rough handling and handcuffs “All I could do is wait. There is nothing to do, no means to go to the bathroom. I sat handcuffed.” The nurse checked her pulse: 195 over 97, pronounced the pulse rate “okay” and asked if the bruises on Mary’s arms were “needle marks.”

Elder abuse covers several areas. We are working with groups that focus on abuse as relates to one’s home and loss of one’s home through predatory lending, through lack of cooperation with homeowners with regard to loan modifications, home improvement scams, and illegal fees paid to individuals professing to be able to help with home loan modifications or restructures.

The State of California is quite clear on definitions of elder abuse. Their 39-page citizens guide may be important if you or someone in your family is a senior citizen and is being subject to harrassment by lenders — this includes loan modification agreements that are ignored by lenders and lenders’ agents.

Financial Elder Abuse: Financial abuse is the theft or embezzlement of money or any other property from an elder. It can be as simple as taking money from a wallet and as complex as manipuating a victim into turning over property to an abuser.

This form of abuse can be devastating because an elder victim’s life savings can disappear in the blink of an eye, leaving them unable to provide for their needs and afraid of what an uncertain tomorrow will bring.

California has designated $25 million to help senior individuals for elder abuse:

Anyone age 65 or older, who is suspected of being abused or neglected, is eligible for APS without regard to income. If you suspect that an elderly or dependent adult is being abused or neglected, call your local adult protective services.

America’s working men, women — and often children — shaped this country into the great place that it is (was?).

Why aren’t we being protected? How did we become “the enemy” and “inconvenient?”

We are being “internally displaced” (meaning having to move within our own country) and our displacement rivals or exceeds international numbers:

• 2009, Sri Lanka: 300,000 war-displaced Tamils forced into camps;
• 2009, Yemen: 150,000 people fled fighting;
• 2009, Sudan: 250,000 displaced;
• 2009, Georgians: 192,000 displaced (Moscow, Reuters);
• 2008, Columbia: 380,000 forced off their farms by guerillas, paramilitaries or drug traffickers;
• 2008, World: 4.6 million from armed conflicts;
• 2008, World: 20 million displaced because of natural disasters such as flooding, earthquakes and storms.

Unfortunately History Does Repeat Itself

It is time to stand up and be heard.

"If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem." — Eldridge Cleaver

“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” — Edmund Burke

"Justice is itself the great standing policy of civil society; and any eminent departure from it, under any circumstances, lies under the suspicion of being no policy at all.” — Edmund Burke

From Leo Tolstoy, one of the world’s greatest writers:

"Government is an association of men who do violence to the rest of us."

"I sit on a man’s back, choking him and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am very sorry for him and wish to ease his lot by all possible means – except by getting off his back."

"If you want to be happy, be."

"In all history there is no war which was not hatched by the governments, the governments alone, independent of the interests of the people, to whom war is always pernicious even when successful."

"In the name of God, stop a moment, cease your work, look around you."

Know Your Rights: The U.S. Constitution: And Fascinating Facts About It

More than 200 families are working with Families Fighting Foreclosure to save their homes in Marin County, California. The sponsoring Group Marin Family Action has just been featured in the beginning of a series from Pulitzer Prize winning newspaper, the Pt. Reyes Light.

One of the strengths of the group is “The Buddy System.” No one goes to court alone when facing opposition from attorneys, lenders, and courtrooms. The group has been shocked at all turns by how sloppy and/or lazy some judges run their courtrooms.

The latest story is of a woman whose husband took out a second on their house without her knowledge. He died shortly thereafter, leaving her confused and about to lose her home from foreclosure. She tried repeatedly to find out what happened, to no avail.

This writer — who has been battling to save her home for 18 months — was in court during one of these legal proceedings (and thinks “illegal proceedings” might be a more appropriate term). The judge pronounced from the bench that “The file is incomplete. I have not reviewed it.” And “It is what it is.” That judge either opened the door for mis-trial, which happened in a round-about way, or she was performing her civic duties in a sloppy manner. It was an appalling view of justice; in fact no justice was going to happen that day if it stayed in the hands of the judge and opposing counsul.

Earlier during the day, that judge told the distressed homeowner that she should prepare to move. She was ready to throw her out of her home of 17 years without knowing any facts and without caring about the facts.

This is being written two weeks after that dreadful Day in Court, and it looks like it is going to have an amazingly happy ending. We’re not at liberty to say yet and the point of this is that you have to be willing to fight or “They” will run over you.

The story about families fighting foreclosure.

A proposal: Keep track of every mistake your bank/lender makes. If we do our “homework” with due diligence, you may save your home (if foreclosure is looming) and not only will your finances be in better shape, but we can help banks do their job efficiently and accurately. Why should we? Because their screw ups do NOT cost them; they cost us. Each bank client ultimately pays for the bank’s messes and the only way to straighten this out is to call them on it.

WHY are the keepers of our money allowed to operate carelessly and sometimes outside of the law? Apparently it’s been sloppy for 15-20 years and no one has called them on it. This is our money we are talking about: yours, mine, ours. People work hard only to have their income carelessly handled by banks and lenders. Where is the control over these institutions? Who owns the Federal Reserve? Apparently, no matter who is “in charge,” of America’s lending institutions, they are not paying attention (or are looking the other way for profit/percentages).

Important note: I do not hate banks. They pay reasonably well, still provide benefits (health insurance and vacations), and have a growth plan for their employees . . . including funding for additional schooling. In my 20s, I worked in Bank of America’s Corporate Finance Department in their San Francisco Headquarters under A.W. Clausen and Robert Frick, both of whom rose to prominence in national and international banking. They were fine men. And most bank employees are wonderful people — although, unfortunately, I’m now thinking someone needs to be watching the store because of the multitude of errors made by those wonderful people.

Bank errors are costing you a fortune (as are erroneous credit reports, but that is another story). Start tracking the errors — when they are bank errors and not such things as overdrafts caused by your mismanagement of your own accounts; that IS your responsibility.

Setting the stage: Around 1997, my then-home-loan was sold to Washington Mutual. I wasn’t informed. I sent my payment to the prior lender and it was lost in the transfer process. After ONE YEAR of getting nowhere in straightening this out, I pulled a negative Better Business Report on Washington Mutual. I put on my best business suit and stood outside their Greenbrae, California branch handing them out to people with a suggestion that they read the report before doing business with WaMu. After successfully turning away several people, I explained my process to the bank manager and insisted he straighten out the missing payment mess immediately or I would continue handing out the BBB report. Bristling, he demanded, “Are you threatening me?” Calmly I responded, “No. I’m promising you that I will hand out this negative report re WaMu.” He cleared the record while I waited. Technically, I should have taken that further; because of the resulting poor credit report due to the lost payment, my home loan interest was higher than it should have been.

More setting the stage: In 2007 and 2008 Wells Fargo Bank lost payments on my home loan. Because of the WaMu fiasco, I began tracking all conversations and letters to/from Wells Fargo.

When the mortgage payments did not clear my account, I called Wells who informed me they did not have the checks. So I paid by phone with their assurances that they would NOT put through both payments should they find the missing checks. However, they found the “lost” payments and put both checks through. The result: $580 in overdraft fees. In 2007 I let the overdrafts go as it takes too much time to deal with bank mazes. However, in 2008, I’d had it: It took almost a month, several phone conversations and five letters to straighten this out. They reversed the overdrafts for 2007 and 2008; however, a great deal of time was spent in cleaning up their mistake. Of course, I wasn’t covered for that.

In December 2008, when I began “negotiating” for a loan modification with Wells Fargo, I began tracking all conversations and letters and now have a four-inch-thick binder and nine typed pages of who said what to whom. I’ve learned far more about banking than I ever wanted to know.

So, back to the list you should keep and the whys of it all: On December 28, 2009, curious about the volume of mistakes made by Wells Fargo since they have held my mortgage beginning July 2006, I started counting from my lists of who said what to whom.

As near as I can figure there are TWENTY-ONE errors during the past year alone. Wells’ mistakes include repeatedly lost documents resulting in denials, misinformation during telephone conversations, two outright lies (one before a Superior Court Judge and one in writing in response to a Congressional Inquiry) . . .

I’m not alone. This IS how banks are doing business – sloppy, as is indicated by my timeline, conversations with others, checking blogs with complaints about various banks, and as indicated by the loss of original mortgage papers for thousands (millions) of people.

However, hope springs eternal:

From a Wall St. Journal article written by Amir Efrati on December 24, 2009: “Now, after the country has been mired in a housing crisis for more than two years, more judges are calling these companies on their paperwork glitches, and in some cases going much further in their efforts to help homeowners.”

and

“It makes sense for judges to demand that mortgage companies follow the rules to the letter if they want to win foreclosure cases in court, says Raymond Brescia, an assistant professor at Albany Law School who has written about the role of the courts in the financial crisis. ‘I don’t think that’s a crazy idea,’ he says. ‘To expect plaintiffs to prove their case is what the judicial system is founded on.’”

SO PLEASE keep a list of your dealings with your banks, lenders (and the credit reporting agencies). For decades I considered these bastions of industry as sacrosanct; I actually thought credit reporting agencies were government agencies. They are not, and, like the banks, they hold your financial life in their shaky hands.

Never afraid of anything in my life, I am now afraid of our mortgage lenders and our banking system; they have too much control, do not manage it accurately or efficiently, seem to have no checks or balances, and can take our homes without having to prove ownership. They have also quite studiously ignored Presidential requests.

In December 2009, I received a three-month forbearance offer. This is wonderful, except that too many forbearance offers disappear into thin air as your lender does not hold the note, has no authority to negotiate anything, and after the three months may foreclose anyway — that IS happening in California.

One of Wells Fargo’s own branch managers expressed worry about this “offer” when I stopped by to give the wonderful news. The manager suggested that I track payments carefully and confirmed what I already know: “Horrible things have happened.”

I love my home and country, and Wells Fargo was a favorite bank of mine until this mess. Because of their history in California, Wells is featured on one of my Web sites (although I’m contemplating taking the time to remove all mention of them from the site), and two of their horses — Molly and King — live in my home (the stuffed ones, not the real ones). This is SO sad.

This is amazing. I saw Chase’s new site at Keeping Your Home.

Chase’s complaint record is not good — 282,000 as compared to Wells Fargo’s 300+ thousand and BofA’s numbers. Interesting ’cause Chase is not a top home lending institution and does not hold a comparable number of mortgages, so this indicates that they are in bad shape. Chase’s site HAS to be all PR, but it’s excellent PR, unless, of course, you can read through PR and its purpose. Chase rolled out earlier in 2009 on the West Coast of the Americas with a lame ad. Now they have nicely captured a face of America, albeit they are catering to Hispanics.

In any case, Chase will go on the list I contact re helping in Marin. And here’s a test I will try: “Concerned about paying your loan?” Of course, this refers to Chase, WaMu or EMC, however, I am going to test them. They do hold my second and they were polite when I first freaked about finances in December 2008. I’ll call Chase to see if they will take over the first and the second at 5% for 30 years fixed. What the hell. Chase says they have helped 750,000 foreclosures . . . I absolutely do NOT believe that . . . or perhaps their definition of “help” should needs defining.

I want to write a book entitled “You Can’t Tell Us Apart, Can You?” referring to “white” America. This because I am German Jew and Irish Catholic and do not relate to subjects of the Queen of England or the King of Spain, at certainly not any nation Denmark-north.

And because I often wonder what blacks, Hispanics, Iranians, Indians, etc. know about America and immigration. I decided early on that they most people are caught up in their own strife, don’t know, and don’t care much about anyone else.

A friend/associate, whom I adore, said this morning that it seems like we are fighting the Civil War, but admitted that he does not know what the Civil War was about. I explained that the North (under President Lincoln) wanted to abolish slavery, while the South wanted to maintain the black slaves and cheap labor for their plantations. He said, “Oh.”

What many people do not know is that plantations in the South and various Caribbean islands were also “maintaining” Irish (and probably other) “indentured slaves.” Indentured, of course, meaning once you pay off your debt you were free, however you could never pay off your debt so this was a lifetime commitment.

Bizarre what potentially losing one’s home digs up, don’t you think? My family has been in America since 1704 and here I am fighting for my rights. Absolutely bizarre.

A current favorite racial comment — this from a TV drama: The Iranian man said, “We can’t go anywhere. We can’t travel through airports. We can’t travel on subways. You look at us with suspicion at all turns. You check us for bombs.”

The black New York cop responded, “Yeah, but you can get a cab.”

Through Marin Family Action, a woman’s home was just save from foreclosure proceedings which would have started Monday, December 21, 2009!

THE STORY

My country, ’tis of thee,
Sweet land of liberty,
Of thee I sing;
Land where my fathers died,
Land of the pilgrims’ pride,
From every mountainside,
Let freedom ring!

My native country, thee,
Land of the noble free,
Thy name I love;
I love thy rocks and rills,
Thy woods and templed hills;
My heart with rapture thrills,
Like that above.

Let music swell the breeze,
And ring from all the trees,
Sweet freedom’s song;
Let mortal tongues awake;
Let all that breathe partake;
Let rocks their silence break,
The sound prolong.

Our fathers’ God, to Thee,
Author of liberty,
To Thee we sing;
Long may our land be bright
With freedom’s holy light;
Protect us by Thy might,
Great God, our King.

One of the greatest things about America is that you do have a voice. Individuals have made a difference and can continue to make a difference. If you are like me, you won’t want to because you don’t like to make waves and/or because you are scared of repercussions.

However, silence will be interpreted as “everything is okay.” It isn’t.

Our recommendation: Blog! Here is a link to Wells Fargo/Wachovia Corporate Blog

Ignore their sales messages; of course, they are informing you that you are to “keep using your debit card and credit card just as you’re doing today . . . ” However, we recommend cutting up your credit cards. All of them! Right now! You CAN live debt-free.

A GREAT ADVANTAGE TO LIVING WITHOUT CREDIT: Since our family got rid of most of our credit cards some years ago and went to an all-cash-basis, we have gone around the world. (We do keep a card for travel and pay it off when we return.) We save for what we want. The only items we buy on time are cars (and even that is a questionable practice) and homes (and we do know people who have saved and purchased cash — not easy in California, but it is possible). The BEST way to get something you want is to save for it and buy it cash. Your savings alone on the interest will probably buy you that luxury item you really want.

Let them know how you feel about their sloppy business practices. Also let them know that you will steer everyone you can away from them. We have easily steered more than $3 million in business that would have gone to Wells Fargo by diverting people elsewhere. That is just through personal conversations and has nothing to do with what this blog is doing. You do have a voice. You can fight back.

In fairness, if your lender does something good, blog on that. There MUST be at least one person who has been treated well, musn’t there? Just one! That would be quite a story.

Other lenders have blogs: Bank of America started one recently, but it is greatly geared towards their future growth. Chase does not appear to have one . . . but there are more than a thousand blog sites expressing their ire at Chase.

If you have urls for other lender blogs, please feel free to include them here.

Yesterday I heard a loan modification person say she didn’t think homelessness had reached crises proportions. Really?

Numbers.

Type “America’s tent cities” into google: 7,720,000 items and 2,550,000 images (many of them duplicates, thank God). One blog sarcastically noted that “banks can’t (or won’t) finance the purchase of them (the tents).”

Equally sad is that the tent cities in America are not controlled or set up “properly” for the most part. If people have to live in them, then please treat this as the national disaster that it is and provide services such as you would after a flood or earthquake.

Instead, authorities (those that live in homes) destroy the tent villages; one group of officials cut up the tents of the homeless people so that they become tentless on top of being homeless.

Yes, there are chronic homeless individuals and that has been a problem in major cities for decades; however, we have a new class of homeless . . . people who in the last couple of years were working and paying their mortgage or rent to stay in “acceptable” housing. These people can be counted among the taxpayers of America. I promise you that you will find people living in those tents that are holding down jobs, getting to work every day, hiding their shame and embarrassment at their situation, and continuing to pay taxes.

Tent cities in some refugee camps around the world are established by various UN entities and while tent dwelling isn’t the average American’s ideal living situation, when tent camps are sent up properly, they are at least orderly and have appropriate facilities. After San Francisco’s 1906 earthquake, members of my family lived in tent villages in Golden Gate Park. That was a state of emergency, and it seems that we are now in another state of emergency.

Some nations, such as Tibet and Turkey (images right) have taken tent living to a fine art and it has been necessary in some areas. “People of the Wind,” filmed in 1976, is a documentary of the Bakhtiari tribe of Southern Iran and depicts their annual 200 mile trek from the high summer pastures through a 12,000 foot pass in the Zagros Mountains (with tents, of course). The migration is to maintain their flocks of sheep and is mandatory for survival. Narrated by James Mason. Music by G.T. Moore (guitar) and Shusha (vocals) is haunting. (A 14-page pdf about this movie: People of the Wind).

In America, mortgage lenders have displaced more than 10 million people; wars in “third world” countries are not currently displacing that many men, women and children, yet we consider wars despicable and send troops to defend those families.

Why aren’t we sending troops to defend America’s working families? Again, I am truly curious? What IS the breaking point. When does someone decide that displacement of 10 million people is against our civil rights?

America’s working men, women — and often children — shaped this country into the great place that it is (was?). Why aren’t we being protected? How did we become “the enemy” and “inconvenient?” We are being “internally displaced” (meaning having to move within our own country) and our displacement rivals or exceeds international numbers:

2009, Sri Lanka: 300,000 war-displaced Tamils forced into camps;
2009, Yemen: 150,000 people fled fighting;
2009, Sudan: 250,000 displaced;
2009, Georgians: 192,000 displaced (Moscow, Reuters)
2008, Columbia: 380,000 forced off their farms by guerillas, paramilitaries or drug traffickers;
2008, World: 4.6 million from armed conflicts;
2008, World: 20 million displaced because of natural disasters such as flooding, earthquakes and storms.

When is the last time you read the America’s Declaration of Independence? It’s on line at the National Archives.

I still haven’t gotten around to asking a bookie or an actuary what the odds are of 10 million people defaulting on their loans without some type of “outside assistance” from the lending industry. And I still haven’t gotten around to finding out if lenders are totally covered no matter what they do to individuals, i.e. do they all have insurance and/or government (taxpayer) dollars to cover them so there is no loss no matter what?

Large migrating groups of lemmings mindlessly jump off cliffs into the ocean and swim beyond exhaustion and into death. While it is not intentional suicide, the effect is the same, and I can’t help but liken our current foreclosure nightmare to the lemmings.

A new “plan” is presented to “save” us from foreclosure every few months; thousands of us rush in that direction to no avail.

Along with those other families, I’ve been rushing hither and yon for one year only to be told “no” to loan modification by Wells Fargo – who does not hold the note in any case – they are servicers and have no right to decide anything.

(A word of caution here: If/when your lender offers a temporary modification indicating that you might be approved for permanent modification at the end of a three-month trial period, QUESTION THAT and get it in writing if you intend to go along with it. If your lender is merely the servicer of the loan (which is true in thousands of instances), they have no authority to offer any type of modification plan; that must come from the investor — many loans have been sold in batches to investors. Odds are good that your original lender does NOT own your note. If you are fortunate, they will have lost the note and, technically, no one owns your home but you.)

How efficient are these lenders? On November 27, 2009 — after almost one year of “negotiations” with Wells Fargo, they declined any loan modification by stating that the investor does not want to modify the loan. On December 3, 2009, I received a “Making Home Affordable” piece of paper from Wells Fargo offering to discuss modification programs to help me stay in my home. On December 8, I received an automated call from Wells saying that more paperwork is due in order to consider modification. After a call to Crystal at Wells, I learned that I’m still in some loop; they are resubmitted some type of modification request to whomever the lender might be. Foreclosure has not been activated. I have somewhere between 30 and 90 days or something . . .

I’m starting to feel insane.

And I can’t help but wonder what they did with the investors that already indicated that they don’t want to modify the loan? Perhaps they threw them off the cliff with the lemmings.

Which brings up another question: Why aren’t the investors suing the banks that sold them these loans? My loan was sold by Wells Fargo to HSBC AFTER I filed for bankruptcy. Doesn’t HSBC have some say in this? Actually, now that I think of this, I’m going to call HSBC and ASK THEM JUST THAT!

We are collectively heading for another endless chasm with our current directions and I am SO tired of this game. I would like to be Lead Lemming, and here’s my proposal:

Get mortgage lenders out of this picture. The lenders have clearly proven they are inept and perhaps unethical; why does the charade continue?

Spend those federal billions on establishing a fund that will buy about-to-be-foreclosed homes from lenders and sell them BACK to the current owners? What is the point of weakening our communities by displacing millions of people?

No one will win this current battle by continuing the established course . . . we will tread water until we reach exhaustion and expire from exertion.

By JAMES R. HAGERTY

Fannie Mae announced a program aimed at helping ordinary home buyers compete with investors for foreclosed homes.

Under the program, dubbed First Look, Fannie plans to consider offers only from potential owner-occupants and certain public-housing entities during the first 15 days in which a foreclosed home is on the market.

Fannie and its main rival, Freddie Mac, are government-controlled companies that buy or guarantee home mortgages. They are among the biggest owners of foreclosed homes. As of Sept. 30, Fannie said it had 72,275 single-family foreclosed homes on its books. Freddie had 41,133 as of that date.

Many investors can move faster on home purchases because they are able to pay cash and don’t have to wait to qualify for a loan and get an appraisal. Investors often turn the homes into rental units or flip them to other buyers for a quick profit. People seeking to take advantage of the drop in housing prices to buy their first homes have been grousing that they often lose bidding wars to investors.

Fannie said it also would help owner-occupants acquire homes by reducing deposit requirements to as little as $500 and giving them a chance to renegotiate offers after appraisals. Such buyers also are to be allowed as many as 45 days to complete the transaction, up from the usual 30 days.

A Freddie spokesman said the company has similar pilot programs and is helping owner-occupants pay closing costs.

Fannie announced Tuesday that 4.72% of the single-family home loans it owns or guarantees were 90 days or more overdue in September, up from 4.45% in August and 1.72% in September 2008.

From Nick Adams
EzineArticles
November 2009

One of the defenses against foreclosure that is becoming more widespread is the so-called “produce the note” strategy. Numerous cases have been thrown out once the bank has been unable to provide the note to prove that it owns the loan. Without having possession of the original note and being able to produce it for the homeowners’ inspection, a foreclosure may be declared invalid.

For homeowners to use this defense, however, it is important that you put together all of the information needed and do the required amount of research. Not every court will look kindly upon borrowers raising this defense if there is no legitimate basis for it. Homeowners defending themselves are already viewed as more of an annoyance than anything, so they should do their best to prepare for this type of defense.

The first question homeowners may want to ask is if a copy of the mortgage or note is already attached to the complaint. This can be a good starting point to determine if the bank has access to the original note, although a copy is not definitive proof of owning the note. Banks may attach a copy obtained from a previous owner of the loan but not have actual possession of the original.

Borrowers also may want to research if a copy of the mortgage or note is required in their state. Civil rules of court procedure would be the place to find this information, and can save homeowners a great deal of time if the state does not require the copy to be attached.

Also, homeowners should look in the foreclosure complaint for any affidavits from the lender relating to the original note. For instance, the mortgage company may include an affidavit stating that the copies of the note are true and accurate representations of the original. Another affidavit may state that the bank is in possession of the original note and mortgage. If these are present, the homeowners may wish to request that the original note be produced for their inspection.

Finally, homeowners should look into requesting the original mortgage and note to be included in the lawsuit paperwork for their inspection. This can usually be done through the discovery process, where homeowners are requesting other relevant documents and attempting to get straight answers out of the bank regarding the mortgage and foreclosure process. As other documents are requested (like payment histories), the original note can be requested to be produced.

If the bank fails to produce the original note for the homeowners’ inspection, the case may be dismissed on this basis alone. Of course, borrowers should consult with competent legal counsel, but this new strategy to defend foreclosure is being used with more regularity due to the inability of banks to keep accurate records of the original note.

Steps to get you through this insane process include:

1. Contact your lender and inform them that you are not able to make the mortgage payments. Tell your story and provide the requested documentation. You do not have to continue calling them; they will call you. You have to know when to talk and when not to talk.
2. Start keeping records of every phone call: Date, time, phone number called, who you talked to and notes about who said what to whom. This may well be your strongest defense down the road. (I have 6 pages typed, single lines with my mortgage lender.) Keep everything in a binder in chronological order. This will help save your sanity also and it will be quite effective when a judge notes that the letters from your lender are unsigned do not have anyone’s name (which is the case with Wells Fargo and probably others). It will also be worthy to note that contradictory letters will come from your lending institution within days of each other. The lenders are shockingly sloppy.
3. Tell your friends and relatives. The more people know about your situation, the more chances you will have to get “lucky.”
4. NEVER walk away from your home. The foreclosure process can be a short one or a long one, depending on your actions. You are in control, believe it or not.
5. Stop paying your credit cards. I hate saying this because in my own case, the credit card agencies were wonderful to work with, whereas the mortgage company has been a nightmare. However, your credit card debt is generally unsecured . . . except for your car . . . I lost mine to reposession. But the house is your first priority.
6. Do not pay for help. Call some of the counseling services just to see what they offer. Most counseling services, unfortunately, offer little. The largest groups that seem to get some positive results are NACA (NACA.org) and Acorn. I strongly recommend working with a professional group . . . one that does NOT request payment as nothing can be guaranteed. Also, It is now illegal in the State of California to charge legal fees for services relating to loan modification
7. After the first three months the bank can initiate a legal action. They can send you collection letters. This is the time to request forbearance agreement. Sometimes it is free but usually your lender requests partial payments.
8. Do not rely on Home Affordable Programs out of Washington, D.C.. Sadly, it was not structured to help the homeowners. Trying this avenue is like hitting your head against wall.
9. An “option” is to request a short sale. I hate this “solution” as you do lose your home and while it does not hurt your credit as much as bankruptcy and/or foreclosure, it still hurts. I would go in this direction ONLY if there is no other choice.
10. How long you have until foreclosure is up to you and how much work you put into saving your home: It can be three months or it can be three years.
11. You may be your own best resource. There are ways to delay the process and stay in your home mortgage free while you save enough to move if you must . . . or figure out a way to earn the money to get back on track, which is not easy, but it is possible.