Someone took a picture of our house?????

[DownNotOut]

My kids just informed me this morning over breakfast that the day before yesterday a man pulled up in front of our house in a brown minivan. They said he was wearing a red shirt and khakis and he got out took a picture of the house and got back in and drove away. They were playing in the neighbor's yard when this happened, so they saw it from two houses down.

What is this all about? Any ideas who would do this? Is this nothing or something I should be concerned about? I am freaking out about this. I know we are behind on our mortgage, but it is only two payments and we are trying to work out a loan mod. Could it be them or would another creditor do something like this?

[junker]

insurance companies do this occasionally, did you recently change homeowners policies?

[HHM]

I wouldn't be overly concerned. At this point it is probably one of 3 things.

1. As previously mentioned, maybe the homeowners insurance company.
2. Part of the modification process, the bank sent someone out to assess the condition.
3. The county is doing tax reassessment.

But, big picture, you are behind on your mortgage. I HOPE you have a contingency plan if the loan mod is rejected or if they come back with a modification that you cannot afford (which happens about 80% of the time). Loan mods are only delaying the inevitable (loss of house) for over 50% of those that seek modification so don't place all your eggs in the modification basket.

[bk4sky]

i know not too long ago in my area they did a re-assessment on all the houses and they sent people around doing this.

[Ifonly]

I know that every month we were behind on our mortgage, Countrywide charged us a $15 "fee" (on top of the late fees) that supposedly represented having an "inspector" come to the house to make certain that it was still occupied. Maybe it was that?

Mine was a big joke because Countrywide has the wrong address on our paperwork (we tried to fix it a million times) so I thought the fee was hysterical since I didn't think they could find our house.

[Flatbroke1]

probably insurance....

It could well have been for insurance.....I used to sell insurance and the companies would order pictures every now and then to keep their records up to date.....if I had to take a lot of pictures I didn't always feel like getting out of the car and knocking on the door.....

[Toby629]

Someone took pictures of our house also 3 months ago. DH saw him taking pictures from the road, he pulled off to the side. We do not know who the pictures were for, could have been the mortgage company, or possible the county assessor or even insurance company. Our home insurance company sent us notice that our homeowners insurance had changed, so possibly it was them?

[dingdong]

Probably a BPO agent for the loan mod/lender.

When I was living in a rental that was foreclosed the BPO guy came buy a couple times and took pics.

Or maybe it is sombody contracting with the Google Map guys or Zillow or one of those stupid foreclosure listng places trying to beef up their site.

[DownNotOut]

Thanks everyone for your replies! Those were all good answers!

It turns out that it was the mortgage company. I called them up and asked them if they would have sent someone to take a picture of my house. She said yes it was probably them, that anytime someone goes at least 45 days behind, they send someone to take a picture to verify that the house is still occupied. So, mystery solved.

HHM, We plan on catching up on the two payments by the end of this month, but by then, we will be behind for June. But, if we are not behind, they will not help us. I am praying that they will give us a good mod, but after reading stories on here, I'm concerned they may not. Thank you for your concern about that. Good news is, that when I spoke with them this morning, they finally have our Hardship Package in their system. They conveniently "lost" it a couple of times. So I guess now it's a waiting game.

Thanks again everyone - sorry for the freak out!