Should I hire an attorney??

[krschaefers]

Hello,

I need some help and am not quite sure what to do. Let me start from the beginning.

In January 2005 my husband bought our home in Florida due to a job transfer for the Hurricanes. I moved here in January 2005. Our original mortgage was with Superior Mortgage. We were told the payment would be about 1500.00 a month, nothing in writing. Upon closing, the payment was then 2300.00.

We struggled to make that payment but did. Shortly after, our mortage was sold to Countywide. We are now about 7 - 8 months behind. We had originally worked out an agreement which added another 400.00 month to the payment that we could not afford.

My husband lost his job in June 2006 and ended up going into business with a friend. We struggled to make payments but could not. My husband struggled to keep the business going but had to get another job in November 2007. We found out in December 2007, his partner took off with all the money. (Much of it ours) The partner had since filed banckruptcy and we are pretty much screwed. I have been unable to find a job, 1) my daughter was born 3 months early and needed around the clock care, 2) I was a Paralegal in MI and can not find a job in FL due to not knowing FL law and 3) we sold our second vehcile to save money.

I would like to work out a loan modification with CW to lower our payments for a short period of time until we are back on our feet. I have been taking classes and should be done with my schooling in the next 3 months and would be able to contribute to household. What are our chances of actually getting CW to lower our payments and us being able to save our home?

Thank you so much for your time and consideration. I know this is a bit more info than anyone probably needs.

Krschaefers

[Cat Damiano]

Hi krschaefers,

Welcome to the forum and thank you for joining............

I am so sorry for what you have been through..........here on this forum you are not alone...........and the more information the better for us.......

I do have some questions first before I offer some advice...........this is key for obtaining a modification from your lender.........

When you put together your household income versus your household expenses do you come up with a surplus of at least $100-$250?

Some of the CW investors on the loans require 30% of the past due amounts be paid up front and the rest would be put into the principle balance of the loan..............if this happens to be your investor, are you able to do this at this time?

[krschaefers]

Thank you for your response. It I add up our incoming to outgoing (not including the house payment) yes, we do have have surplus. I am not sure how much behind we are are, but by my guess, we would not have the 30% to put down, however, we did put over 33,000.00 down on the house when we bought it.

[Cat Damiano]

In the budget you would have to include the house payment and still have the surplus..............
If they modify the loan they want to make sure that you will be able to afford the payment and have money left over to live on moving forward...........

I don't know who the investor on your loan is...........as they are different the loans........the 30% down is from one pool of investors..........but you might have some sort of good faith payment required........

What state are you in?
Is there one loan or two?
Was the loan used just to purchase the house and not refinanced since?

[krschaefers]

We are in Florida. There is only one mortgage and the loan was used to purchase the house. It I add up incoming to outgoing with the current payment (which is too hight) no, there is not a surplus. If we can get the payment down to about 1000-1200 we would still have a surplus. We do have about 3000.00 saved for a payment but that is it.

[Cat Damiano]

They will require a surplus with CW using the current payment.........
CW works with NACA

you might want to contact them for help with the budget to see if anything can be done there........they will help with that.......and if they can help you get it to a surplus, then they can also help you with CW.

Hope this helps.......

[krschaefers]

From a lot of advice from this site, we were able to get a loan mod. However, after signing the paperwork and sending back, they stated they needed another document signed. My husband signed it (I am not on the loan) and faxed to them twice. He did not get a confirmation sheet from the fax, as at his work, they don't have it do that? His boss helped him send the second one.

Now, after telling us call on 8/1/08 to make our payment. My husband called and the gentleman, (our negioter is Gina Williams, can never reach her) said that because they did not recieved the "faxed" document, our loan revereted to it's orignal terms. (Obviously, we could not pay that) After over an hour on the phone with "Tom", he said to fax the paper again, which I did, he took our payment over the phone, and said we will have to wait and see.

Being frustrated, and NEVER being able to speak to Gina Williams, I looked over the paperwork again. They took the payments were behind and added it, along with all sorts of fees of course to the end.

My question is, being that we did not make payments, our loan amount did not go down, how can they add over 44,0000.00 onto our loan? If we did not make payments, the princiapl is still the same, they hurts our equity, and now they have added payments to the end. I do not understand?

Thank you to everyone for your help.

[Cat Damiano]

What was the payment amount?
How many months in default were you?
Were taxes or insurance or both paid on your behalf and if so how much did that amount to?
What was the loan amount before the modification?
What was the interest rate at before the modification?

[krschaefers]

We worked out a payment from 2365.00 at 9.5% interest to 2060.00 at 4% interest. Our taxes and insurance are included at about 2600.00 for insurance and 3,000.00 for taxes. We bought the house for 248,000.00, put over 32,000.00 down and had a balance of 223,000.00. The balance now is 267,000.00. I believe we are over 12 months behind.

We also had an agreement. We did not recieve any thing back from CW so my husband called Gina Williams, she said we needed to fax an additional document. My husband did, twice. My husband called and could not get ahold of Gina, which is normal, but the person he spoke to said they have all the paperwork and everything is fine. When he called 8/1/08 to make the payment, he could not reach Gina and spoke with a Tom that said the home mod was canceled because they did not recieve the fax. They should have 3 copies now. He said our loan is back to it's original form. We have paperwork from CW lawyers stating that the loan is in good standing and we have a good title. It is no longer in foreclosure. They finally took our payment over the phone, but Tom could not help us and said he would email Gina. He is not sure if it is going to be resolved. It not, we have to come up with 48,000.00 or they are going to foreclose again. I'm confused as to how we can have this agreement and then they say they did not recieve 1 piece of paper when they should now have 3 copies of it. Can they do this. Should we just let them take the house?

Thank you so much for this site, it has been a great help.

[krschaefers]

We had managed to work out a modification with CW. However, when we went to make our first payment, the gentleman that we spoke to said that our modifcation had been reversed because they did not recieve a piece of paperwork that was faxed to them twice. We are never able to get ahold of our negitoter. We did not recieve anything from them stating they were going to rescind the mod if they didn't recieve this paperwork. We called and spoke to someone else who said they had all the paperwork and everything was fine. Now it is not and we can not get ANYONE from CW to explain or even call us back. They did accept our payment but stated it was only partial.

Other concerns is the amount of our modificaiton. Not sure they are accurate. We don't know what to do. We don't know if an attorney would even take a case like this or if we even have one. Any advice would be great.

[Cat Damiano]

krschaefers,


Before going to an attorney try calling this person at CW she has been very helpful to the members here in helping to explain the paperwork and what happened with the modification and see if it can be reinstated....

Please let us know how it goes........