Frank Scozzaro: Partnering With Your Lender to Avoid Foreclosure
Today’s mortgage companies have become “workout” specialists. Much is being written about foreclosure these days. Although circumstances sometimes make it the only option, it is avoidable-especially when financial setbacks are addressed with your lender early on.
Most important? Notify your lender as soon as you know you’re going to miss your first payment. Advance notice gives your lender an opportunity to offer options on how to handle your hardship. More often than not, he or she will be willing to work with you to get things back on track.
Workout time. Solving foreclosures has become somewhat of a specialty for many lenders. After all, it’s in their best interest to keep you in your home rather than invest time, energy and money in the foreclosure process (which, in some states, can drag out for 18 months or more). As part of the so-called “workout,” lenders typically offer one of two options:
1. Repayment plan. The lender adds half of the amount of your first missed payment onto each of your next two payments. Such an arrangement provides some breathing room if you have only short-term financial problems. If you’ve missed two or three payments, the situation becomes more serious, but your lender will still try to arrange a repayment schedule.
2. Loan modification. The lender adjusts the terms of your loan by either lengthening the amortization schedule or lowering the interest rate. Another option is to roll the delinquent amount into the loan and re-amortize the new balance so you can pay the additional debt back over time. This is designed for borrowers who can’t afford repayment plans.
There also are alternatives for more serious financial problems. Your lender may agree to help you get rid of your house via a pre-foreclosure sale. Or, in more dire circumstances, your lender will agree to a “short sale,” where he or she lets you sell the house for less than the outstanding loan amount, takes the proceeds and forgives any remaining overage.
Some lenders may even consider a “short refinance,” where they forgive some of the debt and refinance the rest into a new loan. That way, the lender still gets more money than it would by foreclosing. One last way to bail out of a home before things get too bad is a “deed in lieu of foreclosure” agreement, where you surrender the property deed to the bank, and the bank sells it.
Although it’s never a comfortable situation, “working it out” is at least manageable-and much more desirable than foreclosure. Please call Frank Scozzaro if you have any questions or would like further information on this or any other mortgage-related topic. Frank Scozzaro is happy to help out in any way that he can.
