[Moe Bedard]

Because of the incentive payments that are given for the first five years of staying current while in the modification program to the borrower, servicer, and investor on the loan......the servicers may be monitoring this..............and it would also mean that you would no longer meet the criteria that was necessary to be approved for the modification in the first place.........but it is too new to tell how it will be looked into.

So far the guidelines state:

Servicers will be required to maintain records of key data points for verification/compliance reviews. These documents may include, but are not limited to, borrower eligibility and qualification, underwriting criteria, and incentive payments. These documents also include a hardship affidavit, which every borrower is required to execute.

Borrowers will be required to provide declarations under penalty of perjury attesting to the truth of the information that they have provided to the servicer to allow the servicer to determine the borrower’s eligibility for entry into the Home Affordable Modification Program.

Detailed guidance on data requirements will be released separately.

Measures to prevent and detect fraud, such as documentation and audit requirements, will be described in the servicer guidelines and the program guidelines in the financial agency agreements with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Additional fraud protection measures will be announced by Treasury.

Participating servicers and lenders/investors are not required to modify the loan if there is reasonable evidence indicating the borrower submitted false or misleading information or otherwise engaged in fraud in connection with the modification. Servicers should employ reasonable policies and/or procedures to identify fraud in the modification process.

Servicers will be required to collect and transmit borrower and property data in order to ensure compliance with the program as well as to measure its effectiveness. Data elements may include data needed to perform underwriting analysis, loan modification and waterfall analysis, and modification terms. In addition, borrower profiles and property level information may be included. Detailed guidance on data requirements will be released separately.