I just sent in our second attemtp for a HAMP yesterday. We are headed for BK and if no HAMP, probably a surrender on the house, but BK attorney (not yet retained but continuing to be willing to email answers to questions) says do HAMP first or BK stops the process mid-stream.
Brief history, as brief as I can make it. 1.5 year ago, I was making 63k, hubby was hourly at 10/hr 20 - 50 hours range per week. Credit card debt up to 33k, student loan debt approx 29k. My company planned to lay me off, gave me 4 months of sharply reduced hours and slightly reduced income so I could find a new job. Nothing materialized in 4 months, so they redesigned my job and I took a 28% cut to 45K to stay employed. We had previously been through financial stress due to hubs being ill and unable to work for a long period, this was part of what prompted going into training for a new career and the student loans. Anyway, no cash reserves is the point of all that.
Applied for HAMP it took at least 3 months to get them to agree that they didn't need yet another copy of the same documents again. We failed a test known as Imminent Default Indicator, because I had been killing myself to keep the mortgage current, to the detriment of nearly everything else and we are not in a 'hardest hit area.' So in May we knew no mod was forthcoming. Then hubby got on salary 600/week, no sick, vacation or holidays. Our combined total income was then 75K.
House - 1st = 208K 6.25% monthly PITI was approx $1754, 26 years to go
HELOC - 62K floating rate, monthly ran around 155 interest only held by same bank as the 1st (waiting for that interest only to bite us)
House value estimated this spring by a real estate agent known for setting realistic asking prices, at $250 maybe. So we are underwater by 20K.
While all this going on, the FEMA maps for our waterfront (very small lake, less than a mile long) got modified and we are now in a special flood zone. House is actually 5 feet higher than flood state and because of the shape of surrounding properties, I am so very totally not afraid of floods... but now we needed to carry an insurance policy for it. Between that, and a shortage of escrow, our mortgage went UP to 1901.00/month while we were having great difficulty paying $1754 a month.
At the time, they were only looking at 1st mortgages in HAMP efforts. So once my husband's income was salaried and stable, and slightly increased, if they had done a mod they would have reduced the first to.... 1937/month. So HAMP wouldn't have helped if we could have applied again.
Now I have been laid off. Income is sharply curtailed. We missed the August payment, and the September payment. August was originally because payroll wasn't going to clear until after the 1st, but I found out I was being laid off with only pay to the end of August as a severance and figured I needed to think this through. NH unemployment benefits are not as good as nearby Massachusetts. Annualized, our income now would be 52K (600/wk x 50 and 427 UI x 52, even though it's only 180 days unless an extension goes on it). 31% would be 1349/mo. Retrying for a HAMP, and planning on doing a Chap 7 to unload the CC debt. Have been unsuccessful in finding new work (can't even get an interview yet). If no HAMP, job needs to be 60K to recover this mess without a BK. Unlikely. (I think HAMP and job at a rate to just fix it by paying are both unlikely. Will they do a HAMP mod for a person who doesn't have income, but has UI?)
Housing counselor at CCCS told me to follow up and get them to state that all the docs are in order in the package and then remind them that the "special directive" states that they have 30 days to render a decision. All I then need to watch is that I stay under 90 days so foreclosure doesn't start while they haven't decided. I'm sitting on one mortgage payment plus late fee plus HELOC interest in case I need to stave that off.
Oh, and the housing counselor (she's the head of the HUD counselors for this region) has been laid off and will be done on October 31, she said. The general counselors will all get a crash course. She also pointed out that BK attorneys are prevented from counseling on the subject of mortgages by the "SAFE act."
The entire world is upside down and backwards. I think I'm numb, because it is not really registering with me just how close to living in our cars we could be over it all! I'm not even sure what my question is, but if anyone sees any red flags here, please tell me what I need to know.
Brief history, as brief as I can make it. 1.5 year ago, I was making 63k, hubby was hourly at 10/hr 20 - 50 hours range per week. Credit card debt up to 33k, student loan debt approx 29k. My company planned to lay me off, gave me 4 months of sharply reduced hours and slightly reduced income so I could find a new job. Nothing materialized in 4 months, so they redesigned my job and I took a 28% cut to 45K to stay employed. We had previously been through financial stress due to hubs being ill and unable to work for a long period, this was part of what prompted going into training for a new career and the student loans. Anyway, no cash reserves is the point of all that.
Applied for HAMP it took at least 3 months to get them to agree that they didn't need yet another copy of the same documents again. We failed a test known as Imminent Default Indicator, because I had been killing myself to keep the mortgage current, to the detriment of nearly everything else and we are not in a 'hardest hit area.' So in May we knew no mod was forthcoming. Then hubby got on salary 600/week, no sick, vacation or holidays. Our combined total income was then 75K.
House - 1st = 208K 6.25% monthly PITI was approx $1754, 26 years to go
HELOC - 62K floating rate, monthly ran around 155 interest only held by same bank as the 1st (waiting for that interest only to bite us)
House value estimated this spring by a real estate agent known for setting realistic asking prices, at $250 maybe. So we are underwater by 20K.
While all this going on, the FEMA maps for our waterfront (very small lake, less than a mile long) got modified and we are now in a special flood zone. House is actually 5 feet higher than flood state and because of the shape of surrounding properties, I am so very totally not afraid of floods... but now we needed to carry an insurance policy for it. Between that, and a shortage of escrow, our mortgage went UP to 1901.00/month while we were having great difficulty paying $1754 a month.
At the time, they were only looking at 1st mortgages in HAMP efforts. So once my husband's income was salaried and stable, and slightly increased, if they had done a mod they would have reduced the first to.... 1937/month. So HAMP wouldn't have helped if we could have applied again.
Now I have been laid off. Income is sharply curtailed. We missed the August payment, and the September payment. August was originally because payroll wasn't going to clear until after the 1st, but I found out I was being laid off with only pay to the end of August as a severance and figured I needed to think this through. NH unemployment benefits are not as good as nearby Massachusetts. Annualized, our income now would be 52K (600/wk x 50 and 427 UI x 52, even though it's only 180 days unless an extension goes on it). 31% would be 1349/mo. Retrying for a HAMP, and planning on doing a Chap 7 to unload the CC debt. Have been unsuccessful in finding new work (can't even get an interview yet). If no HAMP, job needs to be 60K to recover this mess without a BK. Unlikely. (I think HAMP and job at a rate to just fix it by paying are both unlikely. Will they do a HAMP mod for a person who doesn't have income, but has UI?)
Housing counselor at CCCS told me to follow up and get them to state that all the docs are in order in the package and then remind them that the "special directive" states that they have 30 days to render a decision. All I then need to watch is that I stay under 90 days so foreclosure doesn't start while they haven't decided. I'm sitting on one mortgage payment plus late fee plus HELOC interest in case I need to stave that off.
Oh, and the housing counselor (she's the head of the HUD counselors for this region) has been laid off and will be done on October 31, she said. The general counselors will all get a crash course. She also pointed out that BK attorneys are prevented from counseling on the subject of mortgages by the "SAFE act."
The entire world is upside down and backwards. I think I'm numb, because it is not really registering with me just how close to living in our cars we could be over it all! I'm not even sure what my question is, but if anyone sees any red flags here, please tell me what I need to know.
) Stopped paying creditors: Aug 2010 Filed Chap 7: Apr 29, 2011 341: Jun 1, 2011 Report of no distribution: Jun 1, 2011 Discharged Aug 2, 2011 
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