Foreclosure and Loan Modification Blog

Difficult life events are all the more difficult when there's uncertainty that goes along with them. The worrying, waiting, and wondering about how things will work out makes it even harder to handle. That's especially true of a hardship that seven million Americans have experienced in recent years: foreclosure.

Everyone knows that if you stop paying your mortgage, your house will eventually be sold at auction or repossessed by the bank. What most people don't know is exactly how the process will unfold over what period of time, and how to determine if they can afford to keep their home and avoid foreclosure.

The foreclosure time line differs according to the laws in your state. There are free resources on this site that can help you understand them, including the differences between judicial and nonjudicial foreclosure. You need to be aware of that information if you've defaulted on your mortgage loan.

But the purpose of this post is to help you determine if you can afford to keep your home. Here's how:

When you need to hire an attorney, it usually means that something has gone wrong. Unless you're incorporating your dream business, the reason probably isn't good. It could be that you've been accused of a criminal or civil charge, are accusing someone else, or are trying to protect a valuable investment. Whatever the case, hiring an attorney is a necessity for making the best of the situation you're in.

A good lawyer with high ethical standards and plenty of relevant experience can increase your odds of getting the results you want. As you might guess, not all lawyers are good. Some of them are dishonest, substance abusers, or just plain jerks who are not a good fit for your and your needs.

The following are some common things attorneys do and don't do that make their clients hate them:

There is a wild beast lurking outside the door of many homes in America. Its name is foreclosure. For some homeowners it's not the first time they have encountered it. It came snarling and threatening to take their home from them once before, and they were able to drive it off with a loan modification.

Now the beast is back at the door, as dangerous and close as ever, and homeowners are wondering if a loan modification could be used to defeat it again.

Fortunately for distressed homeowners, loan modifications are not strictly one-time use. Having saved your home from foreclosure with a modification once does not automatically disqualify you from getting another.

It wasn't that long ago that everyone was talking about foreclosure and people were losing their homes in numbers that hadn't been seen since the Great Depression. At one point one out of every 248 households in the country had received a foreclosure notice.

Right now though, in 2016, you don't hear all that much about foreclosure. There are some good reasons for that. It's not as big of a problem as it used to be, home values have risen significantly, unemployment is down, and the Great Recession is technically over.

It's good that things have improved so much from where they were, but there's still a long ways to go before we can say these problems are behind us. Not all of the country's wounds have completely healed from the recession, and those that have left scars.

A loan modification is the only thing that keeps the homeowners who apply for it from losing their home to foreclosure. It permanently lowers their monthly payment to an affordable portion of their income and enables them and their family to continue living in the home that they know and love.

So, given the work it takes to apply for a loan modification, the cost of hiring an attorney, and the prospect of foreclosure, you'd think that no one who has been approved for one would fail to follow the simple instructions for finalizing the agreement. But it happens all the time, and it prevents or delays the final approval of a modification.

While our law firm focuses on foreclosure defense and loan modification assistance, we also employ people with knowledge of the infamous, magical creature of Irish folklore, the leprechaun. In honor of Saint Patrick's Day, we are now making all of our leprechaun-related advice available to the public free of charge.

It used to be that you had to take a class on the law pertaining to small creatures like leprechauns, goblins, and ghouls to get a law degree. Sadly, the standards at most law schools in America aren't what they used to be.

Nowadays, most lawyers (in this country at least) couldn't even tell you the difference between a fairy, faun, sprite, and pixie. This is a shame.

Fortunately for you, we know all about these creatures and are happy to share our knowledge. If you're up to the challenge, we offer this guide to tracking, identifying, and taking advantage of the magical powers of leprechauns.

Most people facing foreclosure first experience a hardship that leaves them unable to pay their mortgage. The hardship is usually caused by loss of income, medical problems, divorce, or a family issue.

Whatever the cause, it's only a matter of time after you stop paying your mortgage before you lose your home through foreclosure. It could be many months or years, but it's eventually going to happen unless you reach a resolution with your bank.

And there are ways you to keep your home and solutions that allow you to exit your property under circumstances that are preferable to foreclosure.

You need money to get by in the world, but most of us have not been formally educated on how to manage our personal finances. We hear things from people we know, the media, and in advertisements. A lot of what we hear is out of context or wrong, and money is so personal that we often think it's in bad taste to talk about it with other people. So the topic is avoided.

But it's clear that many Americans desperately need to improve their financial situation. A recent survey from Bankrate.com says that 63% of Americans don't have enough savings to cover a $500 unexpected expense. Worse, one in three families have no savings. That's a big deal because unexpected expenses are as guaranteed as death and taxes. They always happen.

If you're at risk of foreclosure, a loan modification is your best bet for keeping your home. It allows you to reinstate your loan with a lower payment and keep your property. That's a wonderful thing. The process of getting a loan modification, however, is frustrating and stressful for many homeowners who struggle to understand and complete their applications, then have it denied while the threat of losing their home looms.

What is a Loan Modification?

A loan modification is a permanent change to one or more of the terms of a mortgage loan such as the interest rate, length of the loan, and principal. They have existed for a long time, but have only recently been needed for millions of homeowners.

When the country was hit with the worst recession since the great depression and was hemorrhaging jobs, millions of homeowners became unable to pay their mortgages, and foreclosures started in unprecedented numbers.

As of this writing it's impossible to avoid hearing something about the 2016 presidential election wherever you go. It's on television, all over the web, and everyone is talking about it. Of all the topics the candidates have addressed in countless debates, rallies, and interviews, they never seem to talk about foreclosure and the housing market. Why?

Is it because foreclosure isn't a problem very many people are dealing with anymore? Hardly.

Home values have been rising and many borrowers are using the equity that's helped to give them to take money out of their homes with cash-out refinances. But they're choosing to take out much less than they could. People seem to have learned how drastically home values can drop and erase their equity and then some, and they don't want to be stuck in that situation ever again.

Home equity is how much more your home is worth than what you owe on it. Negative equity, also called being underwater or upside down, means you owe more on your mortgage loan than the home is worth. The value of a home changes based on things like supply and demand for real estate and the health of the economy.