8 MONTHS and FINALLY got APPROVED

[AndreaD]

I can't believe it after 8 months of persistence I finally got my modification. WOOHOOO...

My story...very condensed...We have bought our house in 2007 our loan was Neg arm. and we ran into some difficulty, had 12k in identity theft from our bank and CC's we filed for bankruptcy...(by the way our credit report only dropped 30 points after bankruptcy which still enabled us to down size our car 6 months later cutting our payment in half and was issued 2 new cc's to build our credit.

The next year we lost income at the same time our mother was sick and we had to help her with the medical costs. We could not afford our payments of our mortgage. We called Countrywide to start the process of loan mod. after missing 2 months of payments. We sent in all our paperwork and was told we qualify for a modification. Two months later we were declined with no explanation except the investor denied. So I asked to file again.
Feb. we filed again this time they put both the first and the heloc in for a Forbearance. I called every week, if I didn't get a clear answer I would call again.

As most of you know who have been working with Countrywide and now BofA you can't get anywhere with the customer service.
I was so frustrated with the cluelessness of what was going on and I would get a different answer every time I called and talked to them. You first is approved not approved, your second approved not approved. Is in mod. no forbearance is in a payment plan. Don't make payments it will mess up the numbers, make payments....wow I was so confused I had had enough.

I actually call one of the numbers on this blog for the office of the Vice President 818-316-8650 or 818-225-4123 spoke with Kathy. I told her I know that this might not be the right place to call but It is just rediculus the run around I am getting, and the customer service is just giving me so many different answers I don't know who to believe. I told her I want a real person to talk to I want a negotiator a contact one person who knows my situation and I will only communicate with them.

She understood my situation and said she would call back the next day..which she did to my surprise.. and gave me the name of Jeanette Gutierrez at 1800-399-1762 x8558
who would call me in 48 hours...she did and recollected my documents. She said it could take a few months...9 days later I got a call from Kimberly Conroy my negotiator and was informed that my loan was in the process and she would be the contact person. I was informed by her to hold my payments and not send them in. Which we did. They canceled the Forbearance and started again a modification.

Last week we got info for our Heloc...approved...margin of .125 made to 0.

They escrowed our taxes and made them current. Today we received a call from Kimberly that our First mortgage had been approved..with stair step mod..which I had expected being that we have Wells Fargo as our note holder...our new payment for the loan is first five years I/O last 25 fixed...

first 3 years 3.2 payment with taxes included 1748.98
(without taxes 1308.19)
one year 4.25
one year 5%
remainder of loan fixed at 5% payment with taxes 2948.40

Pretty good for now Kimberley said that I could try back if things change after a few years.


Happy with that...was thinking of getting a lawyer they wanted 4200 and were trying for a payment of 2200 with taxes and Insurance. So got a pretty good deal for now...

everyone don't give up..keep fighting...keep your cool...be aggressive and go to the top....If you bug them enough they will budge....

[cobra]

Andrea;

I am sooooooooooooo happy for you~~~
Mine got approved this morning.

Cobra

[AndreaD]

Oh...By the way Thank you all at LOANSAFE.ORG who have shared their stories....
I am posting my hardship letter..don't know if it will help but I was always looking for samples to get ideas for writing mine.

February 9^th, 2009

To whom it may concern,

I am writing this letter to explain our unfortunate set of circumstances that have caused us to become delinquent on our mortgage. We would like you, the investors, to consider working with us to for a loan modification with principle reduction. We really want the opportunity to stay in our home. We are really interested in working with the investors and Countrywide to work out a situation that would be beneficial to everyone.

We had purchased our home in April of 2007; we have worked really hard to achieve this goal. Before this situation arose we have had long excellent credit standing. We have invested a lot of time and money improving the home with necessary fix ups. Maxing out our credit as we were told we qualified for cash out loan. It was our understanding from the loan officer we had already been approved they were just drawing up the conditions, we were intending on paying down debt. The house is in a desirable location in relationship to my work. Which I have been steadily employed with for over 3 years. We had initially invested 25k in this property as down payment, when purchasing it and were told by our loan officer that we qualified for cash out loan. We had about 70k in equity at that time. She said we had to refinance right away to get the cash out, eventually she said we couldn’t get the cash out and would only get a refinance. This put us in a dilemma because as per the loan officers’ advice she put us in a phony loan first because the intention was to refinance. We did think why anyone would choose to refinance within one month of purchasing their new home. At this time we also were victims of identity theft which cost us a loss of 12k dollars which we never recovered. This circumstance with the changed loan agreement by the loan officer put us in a big financial hardship. We however made timely never late payments on our loan. This higher debt and the identity theft led us into Chapter 7 Bankruptcy in which we kept our car and our house.

Since buying the house my wife has taken up childcare to bring in some extra income. However, she fell fracturing on ankle and spraining the other. She couldn’t walk and was in a walking cast for over 3 months. At this time she had no insurance so this was an added unexpected expenditure. She had to let go of 2 of her children, this reduced her income by $1300. Our house value at this time has also dropped substantially, over 150k down in a year and a half. This leaves us without the option of refinancing anytime soon. The hardship of this situation looms over us as our income has gone down as well as the value of the house in our area. We don’t want to foreclose. This October we were informed that our mother in India is very sick, we have to go see her and help with her care, they keeping her alive until we get there. This situation led to us having to divert our mortgage payment. We are now home and have now stabilized our income once again. We do have steady income and can guarantee that we can if you can approve our situation we will make good on our end of the deal. We can afford with taxes and insurance included $1700 with our other expenditures. We have had a good payment history with countrywide up to this point. If you can approve us for the 40 year loan we can make the payments requested of 1518 and 135 starting March 1^st. With our current income and our bills we would have no problem making our payments further.

I think if you can see this situation we can come to a compromise. You want to protect your interest which is your investment and we would like to stay in our home and once again make timely payments to you. We we’re wanting a lower payment with a fixed rate for the term of the loan. As I don’t believe the market will show a significant turn around to affectively be able to refinance to a better loan in the near future. If you would go to foreclosure you would stand to loose not only a significant cost of the loan but the cost of the foreclosure as well. If you would do a short sale you would also be reducing the principle balance owed to the new buyer. My proposal is that you consider us a candidate for the payment stated above of 1513 and 135.

Houses in our area and our comparable ratio are selling between 283k and 320k, as you can see below. We believe that with our current income and stability of job would make us good candidates for a modification. However due to the unfortunate situation we had passed through and the huge downturn in the California market I truly believe this can be a winning situation for our investors of our loan.

317,000 16942 Schoolcraft St, Sold on Oct 16, 2008, 3 bd / 2 ba, 1,282 Sq. Ft.
$283,000 16924 Marlin Pl, Sold on Jul 23, 2008, 2 bd / 1 ba, 1,325 Sq. Ft.
$305,500 6952 Balboa Blvd, Sold on Jun 26, 2008, 3 bd / 2 ba, 1,380 Sq. Ft.

Please let me know what else is needed from me in order to assist you in this process and have it be resolved as soon as possible. We hope you will consider our offer as a viable and honest choice for all parties involved. Thank you

Sincerely,

[rozuki]

Cobra,

You were notified by NACA? Approved? That's great....!

Was it what you wanted/needed/what they proposed for you? Better? I had to work OT tonight....so wasn't able to call NACA today. i haven't received any emails.....

[cobra]

Rozuki;
Yes it was exactly as NACA has requested. I got a email from NACA around 0930 this morning. Yours will come anytime, anyday now. BTW my info on the NACA site or the BOA workout site have not changed in two weeks.
So your mod could come without any prior notice to you.

Cobra

[rozuki]

Cobra,

That is wonderful!! Great news! You must be so relieved... i just checked the BofA website, no change in my status there yet.

It is just getting so hard to keep my hopes up....Just when I thought nothing else could top what I am going through right now (I am in middle of divorce, trying to deal with the insane clown posse of BoA/India for a loan modification, just got word that my income will be reduced by 4.5% this year due to my union having to agree to a 2 week lag payroll to avoid mass layoffs proposed by our wonderful county exec (the games these politicians play...there is no shortage of funds in my county....and even if there is...why do county workers have to suffer...when he could raise all homeowners taxes 10 bucks a year to cover any alleged shortfall!) I won't see that two weeks pay until I retire!!! I wonder if I should let NACA know about this now...or wait until a loan mod offer comes in?? *Sigh*

[cobra]

Rozuki-

Ithink I've counted 3 maybe 4 people approved in the last two days. Yours is coming! Hang in there a little longer. It's almost over. Maybe email Desoers office again.

Cobra

[hoping4change]

Originally Posted by cobra

Rozuki-

Ithink I've counted 3 maybe 4 people approved in the last two days. Yours is coming! Hang in there a little longer. It's almost over. Maybe email Desoers office again.

Cobra

Cobra,

I read about your mod approval. Congratulations!! I am so happy for you and all the others that have been approved. It sounds like you got exactly what you needed/wanted. Wow! All that effort and patience sure paid off for you. If you remember I got a mod offer a couple weeks ago but it was not good enough so I am still waiting for a second offer. They said to try back in two weeks so I will call again on Thursday. I will keep you all posted.

My best!

[Evan Bedard]

Hi Hoping4change,

Your very smart sometimes these lenders will offer what seems to be a "modification" but its not really helping the homeowner with their financial situation. Once paperwork is signed they will not let you reapply for another modification for 12 months from when you signed the docs. Also if you have someone assigned to your case at BofA I would continue to follow up with that person at least once a week. Stay strong and would love to hear how your case turns out

[hoping4change]

Originally Posted by Evan Bedard

Hi Hoping4change,

Your very smart sometimes these lenders will offer what seems to be a "modification" but its not really helping the homeowner with their financial situation. Once paperwork is signed they will not let you reapply for another modification for 12 months from when you signed the docs. Also if you have someone assigned to your case at BofA I would continue to follow up with that person at least once a week. Stay strong and would love to hear how your case turns out

Thanks Evan! I appreciate that. Yes, BofA/CW just seems to want to put a band aid on our financial situation. But I think we are ALL looking for a long-term solution so that we don't end up here again in a few years. I will continue fighting and will keep you all posted.
Thanks again for your support. My best.

[cobra]

Hoping4change;

CW also offered me a "capitalization" adding my missed payments to the back of the loan and bringing me current. Problem was I could not afford a $2,550 mortgage payment with my new job. They offered this "mod" early April and I had to get it back to them by April 30th. So we declined it.
Problem was we were 7 months behind and I really feared they would delay the mod and push the FC.
So...I advocated my situation with them to push the mod and delay the FC.
And you are so right that if we cave in and accept a bad deal we will just be back here in a year or so trying for another mod. Who knows...mods may not even be offered then. I think you made the correct decision.

Please keep posting here so we can follow your progress.

Cobra

[Wender]

Hello-
Congrats on your approval. I called Jeanette's number that you mentioned below and she seemed very helpful. So did you get this modified through NACA or did you do this on your own with Jeanette?

We are not in foreclosure yet, but all of our credit are almost maxed out due to medical expenses. My loan was originally with CW..but is now owned by BofA. I called the toll free number provided on the BofA website. The guy on the other end told me i was not eligible for a modified loan because we have a fix rate mortgage....basically he wouldn't budge. I had a feeling he's the first line of defense on behalf of BofA and didn't have wiggle room to offer alternatives. I was offered to refinance and save $100.00 per month, but that wouldn't help me at all.

i only talked with Jeanette briefly, but it sounds like they make the key decisions regarding modificaitons. Any advise you can provide would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks for sharing.
Wendy

[Cassietw]

Congrats AndreaD!!!!

[Evan Bedard]

Hi Wender,


Please don't let her bring you down, I have seen many loans that were a fixed rate and still got a modification. My advice is just to not give up and keep calling until you get the right person on the phone who will help you out. Stay strong and don't give up this hard fight!

[alikeith]

Originally Posted by Evan Bedard

Hi Hoping4change,

Your very smart sometimes these lenders will offer what seems to be a "modification" but its not really helping the homeowner with their financial situation. Once paperwork is signed they will not let you reapply for another modification for 12 months from when you signed the docs. Also if you have someone assigned to your case at BofA I would continue to follow up with that person at least once a week. Stay strong and would love to hear how your case turns out

Actually thats not true. i had a mod back in mar 08, and applied again in dec 08. Was approved both times.

[Andrew]

Alikeith, did you sign the mod prior?

[alikeith]

I did sign the previous mod and it was in effect

[Andrew]

Very odd, as several members on this fourm and mods I have seen are not able to obtain another modification until 1 year after. But everything is a case by case basis.

[alikeith]

Yeah i was suprised too honestly. I actually had inquired about it on this site. I did not expect to get another one so soon.

[Evan Bedard]

Wow Alikeith that is amazing. I have never seen someone get 2 modifications within 1 year. Congrats!!!