For homeowners, promised help rarely arrives

[Robb]

NEW YORK -- Rueful laughter rolled through a roomful of housing counselors last week when a federal housing official said mortgage servicers were working hard to assist distressed homeowners. The crowd laughed again when Laurie Maggiano, director of policy for homeownership preservation at the U.S. Treasury Department, announced a new directive under which servicers must confirm receipt of loan modification applications within 10 days and render a decision within 30.

(snip)

The Center for New York City Neighborhoods found that of the 4,652 homeowners who've sought assistance from the center's 30 partner agencies since July 2008, 1,429 applied for loan modifications. But only 330 — less than a quarter — were offered ways to make their mortgage affordable, whether through interest rate adjustments, extensions to the life of the loan or lowering the principal. It's not only that servicers are denying requests, the advocates said; it's that they can take months to even begin reviewing an application.

(snnip)

Indeed, foreclosures continue to accumulate at a pace of one every thirteen seconds nationwide, dramatically outpacing any efforts made under HAMP. A recent study by the non-partisan Center for Responsible Lending finds that there are 5 million homes nationwide either in foreclosure or more than two months behind on payments as of July 1, but that there have been only about 300,000 finalized modifications.

(snip)

When the Center for New York City Neighborhoods observed foreclosure conferences in courtrooms across the city last summer, it found servicers and attorneys for the banks routinely unprepared to negotiate payment plans, unfamiliar with the details of borrowers' cases and not empowered to actually make a modification or payment plan offer. The servicers rarely came to court with a phone number for the servicing company that actually led to a person who was authorized to make settlement decisions.

MORE...

This is a good read.

[EFerrari]

1. For the second time now, Washington Mutual has denied

that it ever approved a loan modification for my mother. She has a stack of emails from them that show otherwise and a journal of all the hours she spent on the phone with this @ssholes. And it has taken months and is like pulling teeth. She finally got the thing approved and the following week a letter in the mail from someone else saying she had been turned down.

It looks like one hand doesn't know what the other hand is doing and feels like a land grab.

[Robb]

2. Did you see the article about the couple

...in Phoenix who were already in a loan mod program, up-to-date, and Chase sold their house in foreclosure? First they heard of it was when the new owner contacted them.

[EFerrari]

3. I'm about ready to call a reporter.

When we tried to find an agency to intercede, all I found was warnings about third party scams. Imo, it's going to turn out that the lenders are running the biggest scams.

[doodadem]

6. How many things wrong with this statement?

""We apologize for the confusion over the modification actions and the parallel foreclosure steps Chase takes as a precaution. We have reached out to Ms. Zerner to discuss where we go from here," Chase officials said in a statement."

Wells Fargo has been giving us the runaround on our loan modification for months, and is saying if they don't receive a full payment by the end of the month, they're going to start foreclosure procedings--again.

These are the same people that we were given no choice about bailing out last year. All any of these banks have done since is bite the hand that feeds them.

[blueamy66]

5. I just got my final, notarized paperwork in the mail.

I hope that this is it and that my mortgage company stops reporting me to the credit bureaus.

[EFerrari]

7. I wouldn't wait but contact the credit bureaus myself

and fax them a copy of your docs. At that point, I think they're required to correct your report or at least here they are. Good luck.

[blueamy66]

9. Thank you.

That's a good idea.

[Robb]

8. Permanent modification?

Congrats if so. :)

[blueamy66]

10. Yes, permanent.

But believe me, the different depts at my mortgage co. definitely did not communication with eachother very well. Sometimes it was very frustrating.

My payment went down almost $300 a month.

[chill_wind]

4. K & R. n/t