Preventing Foreclosure is a Two-Way Street

Preventing a foreclosure requires two important things, the will of the homeowner to come to an understanding with his or her lender as well as the will of the lender to come to an understanding with the borrower to the same end. Nonetheless, as a homeowner it will always be a good thing that you get legal counseling.

When you have a mortgage loan, while you know you owe the money that allowed you to pay for your home, a rather common occurrence that during the lifetime of the mortgage loan there will be times when you need to divert that money to something else. As a general thing, this “something else” is usually health related; so it is not uncommon and it certainly is not a matter of the world ending.

Nonetheless, many homeowners will try and hide themselves from these normal occurrences; while hiding is another “normal” to regular experience it only will make things worse for the homeowner in terms of the mortgage loan and the commercial relationship that he or she has with the lender. Lending companies are in the business of making money, therefore they will lend money to someone so that he or she can buy a house, their profit will come when the borrowed money is paid back; done so with an interest rate. The interests are the lender’s profit.

Consequently, it is understandable why lender companies are so focused on the interest rates and on imposing higher interest rates for borrowers who have fallen behind on their payments once or twice.

Still, that is no reason logically speaking why to dodge or hide from your lender. When a borrower hides or ignores the communication requests from his or her lender, the lender has the right and the normal behavior to think that he or she will be victims of fraud.

So what to do when you are facing financial problems and even if you are not- in terms of your lender?

• Do not dodge, hide, or neglect to pay attention to his or her requests for communication.

• Do not play possum or pretend that your financial situation will recover, improve or go back to normal overnight. Be frank with yourself, your family and your lender, contact your lending agent as soon as you realize that you will be behind on your payments, the sooner you are frank and honest, the more alternatives that your lending company will be able to offer you to help.

Lending companies are not real estate administrating companies, so they do not have use or room for a real estate property that is yours and should remain yours.

• It might be that the alternatives that your lending company offer you seem too complicated or cloudy; it is a good idea to have at hand the number of a real estate lawyer or the government liaison for such matters so that you will be able to understand and protect yourself.

• One of the most common things in such matters is that homeowners easily become pray of “foreclosure prevention” ghost-companies and scammers. They offer the homeowner either a loan on the actual real estate property so that he or she might get back on track on the mortgage payments or they will ask for a “small” payment to protect the homeowner from foreclosure.

While there are processes that will indeed stop foreclosure such as a loan modification, the homeowner has to be extra careful when he or she seeks such assistance. Once again a real estate lawyer might be able to help as well as the government liaison of the HUD program.

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