How To Talk To Your Lenders?

How to do loan modification with some top lenders?

In this article, I am suggesting ways and means to talk, handle and finally negotiate a loan modification with your lenders. These are time tested tricks, and procedure which people who does not want to hire an attorney, can use and be successful. I am not saying that you should not hire a licensed attorney, and by all means should hire a Nevada attorney but I am saying that if you are so hard pressed but otherwise feel capable of doing your own loan modification and like to sail through this troubled tsunami, then have my blessings and read the following pearls of wisdom.

First with Countrywide, there are some important steps you need to take.

Countrywide has made a settlement with State Attorney General of Nevada to do loan modifications. Countrywide, a rule of caution for everyone, is one of the most crooked bank of USA. Yes, close to the savings bank debacle of the 80’s. If one institution had single handedly destroyed the American fabric and American Home Dream, this is the one. What does Countrywide Bank need to see from you in order to approve your loan modification application? Here are some of the items you will need to prepare and submit with your application:

• Hardship Letter-a brief explanation detailing the circumstances that caused you to become delinquent, explain how you have tried to remedy the situation and tell the lender about your plan to get back on track and stay there.

• Recent Income documents: pay stubs, W2, benefit statements, unemployment
• Bank statements and Tax returns for last 2 years
• Complete & accurate financial statements

How all of these documents are prepared and presented to Countrywide loss mitigation department can make the difference between getting your loan modified to an affordable payment or being denied.

A little up-front knowledge and preparation will give you the fighting chance you need to save your home with a loan workout. Once you know what Countrywide Bank is looking for in an acceptable loan modification application, you will be able to present your case in the best possible light to get an approval.

First, send them an authorization, if some third party is handling your case like an attorney. Then, wait a few days, and send them a hardship letter. Please see my blog for writing a hardship letter. Then just give them basic financial information about your mortgage, expenses, and income. A rule of caution, don’t give them all the details, so in case you need to change down the road, you can do that. Try some intelligence with them. Don’t beg them. Tell them that they had done something wrong. Not a single day passes, when Countrywide does not settle with someone the ongoing litigation.

Here are 8 Tips that will help you get your loan modification application approved:

Tip #1: You should know the lenders guidelines for approval before you even send your documentation. Wells Fargo is strict about all these guidelines, and your case would be unnecessarily delayed, if some of your documents are missing.

Tip #2: Make a financial statements which can show all your income and expenses, and that you are trying to cut down your expenses, and in fact, balancing your budget and expenses. Eliminate all the unnecessary expenses like cable tv, cell phone bill, extra car sitting in garage for long time, including of course sending in-laws back to their original home.

Tip #3: Write a convincing letter explaining your circumstances about your hardship situation. I have given some templates. Use them extensively with some revision. Sooner, I am going to write more about different economic hardship situation.

Tip #4 Substantiate your economic hardship with supporting documents. Each fact should be corroborated with documentary evidence.

Tip #5: Calculate your monthly mortgage payment yourself, and prepare yourself, if you can live with it because this is the payment you are going to pay for the next 30 years or so.

Tip #6: Take your time and complete the required loan modification application forms. Call the lenders to find out if they had received all the papers.

Tip #7: Submit a complete, accurate and acceptable application that meets the Wells Fargo loan modification program guidelines. Remember, if you are missing on any of these documentation, you are losing valuable time.
When you call the lenders on phone, make sure you plan to stay longer period of time, and also to be very polite with the representatives. Make sure you get their name, and write on your journal with time and date, and the result of the conversation.

Please resubmit any of the financial information again if there is any change or it needs any update or your hours are reduced. The banks would not tell you what they are looking for (truthfully they are looking for excuse to get rid of you), sometime they would say you make more money, and some time they say there is no way you can make the modified payments. Try not to get angry. These are the frontline people who are taught this way. They are not rude, they are reading a script, and they can't depart from this script. Try not to convince them, but instead ask them about loan modification, or home retention department.

Let us do some homework if you got a predatory loan?

Let Us Do Some Homework If You Got a Predatory Loan?

Foreclosures in Nevada are on the rise and unfortunately everyday more and more homes are being foreclosed. Not all of that is your fault, and it is not all based on your non payments of the monthly mortgage payments. There is something else to it, and that is the predatory practices of your lenders. They are the one who has given loans to unqualified people, with unverified and unsubstantiated incomes and financial reports, and started loans with the so called “teaser rate”. So they are also culpable in this fiasco. In fact, they are the one who caused this fiasco.
1. Find out if you have a balloon loan. A balloon loan is the one in which after a series of low payments the entire loan balance is due in a large lump sum) and your need to obtain another loan to finance that final lump-sum amount.

2. PMSI and other mandatory insurances? Were you required to buy credit insurance, insurance that will repay the debt if you die or become disabled? (Note: Credit insurance is optional and will not affect your loan decision if you decline to buy it. It can, however, add considerable cost to the loan transaction. You should decide whether you are going to purchase credit insurance carefully.)

3. Have you refinanced your loan several times, and in each instance increased either your monthly payment and/or the total amount you owe on your home?

4. After settlement, were you surprised to find that the monthly payments on your mortgage loan were higher than you anticipated based on the initial disclosures?
5. Did you incur any unexpected costs at settlement that were not explained to you prior to the settlement?

6. Were you asked to leave signature lines or any other important line-item of any form blank? Did the lender or broker alter any information you entered on your loan application?

7. Check your loan file. Are any of the following disclosures missing?
- Good Faith Estimate:
- Special Information Booklet
- Truth in Lending
- HUD-1 Settlement Statement
- Any missing signature of one of the spouse
- Any spouse missed any of the initial in those documents
o Each one of the spouse suppose to get separate documents for loan closing.

8. Do your documents reveal that your interest rate calculation will change to require you to pay "daily interest" in instances when your payments are late?

9. Is your loan amount on the loan you obtained higher than the value of the home?

10. Were you encouraged to include false information on your loan application?

11. What is falsification of loan documents? This is most common in Nevada because most of the people, who worked in the service industry, never made more money to deserve a conventional loan. Most of them got 80/20 loans. That means they have a principal mortgage accompanied with a secondary mortgage. Unfortunately, they are the prime victim of this predatory mortgage practices. Their assets, jobs, secondary job, and of course the so called “other income” was never verified by a single verifier. I still see lots of the missing documents in the loan/escrow package. Most of the times, the TILA documents are missing, at other times the most missing are the RESPA documents. The borrowers were given a different Good Faith Estimate and the escrow papers reveal a different outlook.