Approximately 250,000 families enter into foreclosure every 3 months due to delinquent home loan payments or delinquent property taxes. Each of these homeowners has one thing in common: they have to make the decision of whether or not to fight for their home. However, if you want to fight the foreclosure and keep your home, it's time to find a foreclosure defense attorney. Here are some reasons why:
Defining Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is not a matter of “who”, but a matter of “what”. Fannie Mae is a nickname for the Federal National Mortgage Association (FNMA). Freddie Mac is a nickname for the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (FHLMC). Both the FNMA and the FHLMC are home mortgage companies that were created by U.S. Congress. They do not originate or service mortgages, instead they buy and guarantee mortgages from the secondary mortgage market. The secondary mortgage market is where home loans and mortgage servicing rights are bought and sold between lenders and investors. This is great for homeowners because the secondary mortgage market creates competition in the mortgage industry and is responsible for encouraging lower interest rates.
When you are served with foreclosure documents it can be devastating. Given the current situation, you are faced with the possibility of losing your home during, what appears to be, a never-ending COVID-19 pandemic.
This foreclosure also didn't take place because you have tons of disposable income laying around. So now you have to decide how you are going to save your home. The idea of hiring an attorney in the wake of being served with foreclosure documents seems impossible: if you didn't even have enough money to pay your mortgage, how can you think about hiring a lawyer? So now you're considering representing yourself in court to save your house and to save the attorneys' fees.
The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has released a document that gives homeowners information on what to do when they're facing foreclosure or can't make their mortgage payments called “Homeowner's Guide to Success: What To Do If You Can't Pay your Mortgage.”
The HUD guide is short, but contains a lot of useful information for homeowners who are in foreclosure or in danger of falling into foreclosure. If you're having trouble with your mortgage and don't know what to do, HUD's guide is a good place to start learning about what options are available to you.
The guide includes a glossary of terms, a financial worksheet, and advice on where to go for more information. But it also includes some specific advice on what you should do.
Falling behind on your mortgage is a terrible situation to be in, but even if a foreclosure sale date is fast approaching, it doesn't necessarily mean that all is lost. You may still be able to stop foreclosure, possibly even permanently.
Depending on your situation, a loan modification, adjournment, emergency motion, or bankruptcy could help you avoid losing your home to foreclosure. Here's how each works:
1. Loan Modification
Applying for a loan modification can stop a foreclosure sale when the application for it is submitted to the mortgage servicer at least 37 days before the sale date. When a bank pursues foreclosure while a loan mod application is under review, that's called dual-tracking, a practice that is prohibited by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's mortgage servicing rules.
As you fight to keep your home after defaulting on your mortgage payments, it can feel like the bank is completely unwilling to work with you, that they actually want to foreclose on you and take your home. And, since you're just one person fighting a huge bank that has billions of dollars and the best lawyers money can buy, you might as well just roll over and accept the inevitable, right?
