Loan Modifications

[sguerra923]

Has anyone successfully complete and loan mod on there home? I'm hearing all this ads on paper etc.. however I know there's a lot of fraud too..

[jtrenton]

Has anyone successfully complete and loan mod on there home? I'm hearing all this ads on paper etc.. however I know there's a lot of fraud too..

In times like this there's lots of fraud of course, and if you decide to do a loan modification make sure that your are not dealing with charlatans...

[DownNotOut]

I am in the process of trying to do one on my home, so I will let you know what happens. So far, they haven't been helpful because we haven't been behind. But now, as of tomorrow, we will be behind so I'm hoping that will get them moving! I've been trying since November.

[hopeforus]

We are about to mail off our financial package to GMAC tomorrow. Our payment with property taxes right now is only 1330.00. Our max for rent was gonna be 1200.00 so I'm hoping we can get it down even just a hundred dollars and it would be doable. Then we just have to deal with the 2nd... in some way...

[DownNotOut]

Our mortgage payment is $1600 WITHOUT taxes and insurance, so I'm really hoping for a big change! We have a pretty crappy interest rate because we are self-employed. Anyway, they've had our hardship package for a week now and I haven't heard anything yet. They have 30 days supposedly to let me know something.

[hopeforus]

We were told for ours that it's 14dys to get into the system and around 30dys to hear anything. So we won't hear anything for 6wks or so.

[spidge]

You can do all this without an attorney. There is a guy that told me he paid $2600 to a firm to do a modification for him and he was told the program he would qualify. I let him know he could have done it without the payment to the firm with a hardship letter and he thought I was nuts and asked for an example. I showed him my letter and the effect it had on my modification and he was pissed. I also adviced him that he would not qualify for the program that they stated as the value of the home was outside the guidelines, but again he was mistified. Understandably as who knows about this stuff unless you have gone through it, right. A couple days ago he came to me and told me the firm had called him with the bad news and that he would have to go a different route.
I have read that some modification departments are 60-90days backlogged, so be patient. It can be done, but call twice a week and see if you can get in touch with your negotiator as they will set the new terms. By the way the collections departments don't talk to the mod department so you will still get some collection calls. I simply asked to be tranfered to the same person who was familiar with me and it made it easier when I could get them on the line.

Good luck.

[phoenixrisin]

We did a mod around Sept of last year with Citifinancial. It took around 6 months of no payments. Had an auction date. Finally put through a mod request. Submitted hardship letter, etc. Took them almost 2 months to answer- then we had three days to reply and forward payment. They dropped interest .99%- took all months we missed and tacked them on at end of mortgage, but in 27 yrs, not 30 years. Monthy payment didn't really drop, and we have to pay $3300 to do the mod. Old mortgage with bad history was closed, and they opened a new mortgage.

All in all not a huge help other than getting back to "good" status on mortgage.

Had we been able to hold on longer, I think we might have gotten a better deal- like reduced principal since we are about $50-60k underwater.

FYI- you don't need a lawyer to do it. We didn't.

[spidge]

We did a mod around Sept of last year with Citifinancial. It took around 6 months of no payments. Had an auction date. Finally put through a mod request. Submitted hardship letter, etc. Took them almost 2 months to answer- then we had three days to reply and forward payment. They dropped interest .99%- took all months we missed and tacked them on at end of mortgage, but in 27 yrs, not 30 years. Monthy payment didn't really drop, and we have to pay $3300 to do the mod. Old mortgage with bad history was closed, and they opened a new mortgage.

All in all not a huge help other than getting back to "good" status on mortgage.

Had we been able to hold on longer, I think we might have gotten a better deal- like reduced principal since we are about $50-60k underwater.

FYI- you don't need a lawyer to do it. We didn't.

It sounds like you actually did ok. Maybe not what you expected or hoped for either. Also very few lenders are writing down any principal so I would not feel bad on that one. Only 50-60 grand upside down? Some of us are 200+ on an average Socal house.

[OregonMom]

Well it was pretty easy to get my second modified but my first won't help at all. We just gave the house back. Our first was with Chase and they are horrible. Second was with Suntrust and they cut interest rate in half.

[DownNotOut]

Spoke with a loan counselor on Friday at IndyMac. She claimed that our paperwork was not in their system. I told her I faxed it on April 23. She said it was taking about 3 weeks to get it into their system. I said it's now been 4 weeks. She told me to re-fax it. Great. Now I'm back to square one, I suppose. So I did re-fax it - right to the Senior VP of the Loss Mitigation Dept. So there! Maybe we'll get somewhere now!

[Torra]

I have been trying to complete a loan modification with B of A for close to a year. They made an error and put my trial payment $650 higher a month than they should have been. I made my three trial payments, the last one was five months ago. The bank still has not fixed their error, I have faxed to them my income paperwork no less than five times because they never seem to have all the documents. I can not continue to make the higher payments. Some departments say I'm o.k. - some want one to five payments. I call every day asking for someone to help me. I have been calling at least three times a week since the first of January. I am still waiting for help. I can make the correct modification payment, I was at one point given that amount and told the paper work should be to me by the end of January. Still waiting. There are some good "blogs" for "Loan Modification Hell". It seems my experience is the norm, not the exception.

[montana59451]

Go to loansafe.org there you will find forums for those undergoing B of A mods. It is a long drawn iut process but all the help you need is there

[Torra]

Thank you so much! I went to loansafe.org and found a number to the Executive Customer Relations General Line for the Bank of America. It is 704.386.5687. This line is answered by a real Person! There is no phone tree. I told my story to one of the operators there and they are going to immediately look into it. It doesn't mean I will get the modification but it does mean I might have finally reached some one who can move it along. He felt he should have an answer for me by Monday as to my status and getting it completed.

[onwards]

Has anyone successfully complete and loan mod on there home? I'm hearing all this ads on paper etc.. however I know there's a lot of fraud too..

I completed one myself last March as a private mod with my lender (GMAC).

I am right now attempting to modify again into HAMP (again doing it myself).