Would you like to reduce your monthly mortgage payment? Thousands of homeowners have looked to mortgage modifications as a way to lower their monthly bills during hard times, but the process hasn’t been easy on some homeowners.
A home mortgage loan modification is essentially a new contract that a homeowner negotiates with the bank. In many ways it is similar to refinancing. You can have your monthly mortgage payment reduced by extending the length of your payment term or, in some cases, by being approved for a lower interest rate. Unfortunately, many homeowners who choose this option have found out that the process wasn’t as simple as they had hoped.
According to news reports, one homeowner began receiving past due notices and letters from her bank threatening to foreclose on her property shortly after she entered into a loan modification agreement with the bank that held her mortgage. She didn’t understand why it happened to her since she has made payments on time under the loan modification contract that she entered into with the bank. It is almost as if the bank was failing to uphold its end of the supposed bargain.
A recent study conducted by the Connecticut Fair Housing Center took a look at hundreds of loan modifications and revealed that at least one quarter of the homeowners that entered into them were having problems with mistakenly issued default and foreclosure notices as well as inaccurate mortgage balance statements. One recent lawsuit brought by an aggrieved homeowner alleges that an employee at a bank call center actually admitted that they received bonuses and other perks if they were able to get homeowners to pay more than the balance due on their mortgage.
It is apparent that homeowners are trying to find reasonable solutions to stay current with their mortgages and pay back their debts, despite the tough economic times that they are currently facing. Unfortunately, it seems that the banks are making it harder than ever for people to stay in their homes.
Source
USA Today: “Mortgage modifications don’t end trouble for some homeowners,” Jacob Adelman, 5 Jul. 2011