Repayment plan success?

[w.davis]

Hello all,

I've been reading all the posting's related to Countrywide and it seems like most have posted a bad experience with them. We also have a loan through Countrywide Home Loans and last week we applied for a loan modification due to a hardship. We want to keep our current loan which is actually split into two loans, interest only but the interest is high on each loan and we have a really high mortgage payment. We've tried to refinance but have been turned down by CW and our credit union because we owe more than the house is worth, so we thought this was our next option to try and lower our mortgage payment. Unfortunately since there's no equity in the house we're unable to take cash against the house to pay down some of our debt.

We haven't heard back from CW yet since we just started the process. But I've heard alot of people mention that sometimes it can take up to 6-8 months when I was actually told by CW that it could take up to 30 days. Is this normal and how can I speed up the process? Also since we just started the process is there any advice you can give me to try and expedite the whole process and does anyone know what the cost usually runs for a loan modification? You would think they would add the cost to the new modified loan since we're requesting it due to financial hardship which would tell you we can't afford any other expenses........can anyone give me some guidance?
Also, does anyone have any good experiences with CW....I've only heard all the bad.

Thanks,
Wendy

[schwefls]

Hi Wendy welcome to our forum:

I wanted to stop in ans say hello. Shrotly someone will be reaching out to you to address your questions and provide you with some sound advice/suggestions. In the interim please hang in there.

[Moe Bedard]

Hello Wendy and thanks for sharing your story here on Loan Safe!

This process can take on average 60-120 days. Sometimes less, sometimes more. There is no rhyme or reason in this whole process.

Countrywide can be difficult to deal with, just like EVERY over burdened and under staffed servicer is, but with that said, they are actually one of the better lender/servicers to deal with. I have seen many, many loan modifications granted by Countrywide. I want to see more and faster, but they are helping a little.

This of it as if you are wounded and there are hundreds of thousands like you with wounds. Some have worse wounds and some, just paper cuts. They are the emergency room and they are just overwhelmed with patients and its almost chaos. But in the chaos, people are getting that help. Not all, but some.

What do those some do that the ones that don't get help don't? They make sure the nurses and doctors know they are there every day, every week and every month and they will not leave until they get help.

OK, enough analogies

You need to write your hardship letter (example here), figure your income and expense sheet, gather all your income documentation and get prepared.

Read through the success stories here with Countrywide and see what the others have done and won that have gone down your exact same path .

You can write a Qualified Written Request, email, fax, and call them all the time till you get some help.

Try using this number when you call. 1-800-405-0078.

I look forward to hearing more from you and getting you into our success section. Best of luck and keep up the good fight!

[w.davis]

Hello everyone,

Can anyone tell me what exactly is the Qualified Written Request letter used for? I've also been going back and forth with Countrywide Home Loans regarding a rate reduction. We initially started with the Hope Dept. aroun June 5th who denied us for the forbearance which we did not want because all that was is stop payments for 60 or 90 days which that amount is tacked on to your loan and you are then reported to the Credit bureau as being late on your payments. We then called the Retention Dept. on July 28th who stated we qualified for a rate reduction so they would forward all the documents (Hardship letter, paystubs etc.) we had initially faxed to the Hope Dept. for review. So throughout the month of September I've been calling at least twice a week to follow up on the progress and each time I'm told no one has picked up the file to review and the process could take up to 45 days, so once a negotiator picks up the file and starts the review process they will contact me but I'm free to keep calling and checking on the progress. So last Monday I call and speak to someone and they tell me there are no documents on file for our case but rest assured my case is under review, so I reply "What are you reviewing if there are no documents on file for you to review?" to which she responded, "you have a valid point, let me check with my supervisor to see what we can do." She comes back on the phone and advises me to fax the documents to her directly and she in turn will fax them to where they really need to go. Needless to say after going round and round with them for almost 4 months now the whole cycle will need to start over again because faxing the documents over now will be like initiating the whole process. I asked that Rep to call me once she receives them so that I know it will be taken care of......and of course no call back (surprise, surprise). So now it's been a week since I re-faxed all the documents and I'm almost scared to call them to confirm they did receive the documents because I know I will loose it......I've been very nice and patient with them for almost 4 months and I feel like they tell you what you want to hear just so that they can get rid of you and go on to the next person to BS them too!
Needless to say we've never been behind on our mortgage paymtents. We have two loans throught Countrywide Home Loans on our home both fixed but the interest rate on one is 6.25% and the other is 10.75%.....that's 17% guys! Our mortgage payment is sky high and all we're trying to do is get a rate reduction which would decrease our mortgage payment. We're trying not to fall behind on our mortgage because our credit is great and CW seems to report you to the Credit Bureau right away while some of the other creditors don't report you for two months or so. We're falling behind on some of our other debts put trying to maintain our home loan, should we just stop paying.....we don't want to ruin our credit and should we use this QWR letter, does this letter pertain to our situation?

[w.davis]

So I want to ask everyone with interest only loans who visit this forum a question. I've been back and forth with Countrywide regarding getting my loan modified....all that I'm asking for is to have our interest rate decreased on both of our loans to lower our monthly payments (we have two loans with two different interest rates). I have been told by CW that they will only modify ARM and Sub Prime loans. Is anyone else in the same situation and if so have you had any luck with CW in getting assistance with this.....we don't even qualify for the new Hope for Homeowner's program coming into effect on Dec. 1st because again it's for ARM and Sub Prime loans. Does anyone have any advice or experienced the same thing and maybe received assistance elsewhere? I feel like there's got to be something out there for people like us who are also experiencing a hardship, but maybe I'm just not looking in the right place. Any advice?

[Cat Damiano]

did you call the executive team to confirm that the investors on your loans do not have any other options for you?
1-800-405-0078


For the H4H (Hope for Homeowners) FHA program..........the issue is not the type of loan that you have, it is the fact that you have two liens on the property and in order to qualify for the H4H program, the second lien would need to release itself and be willing to accept nothing and extinguish...........because you can only have a first lien when applying for the program.

[w.davis]

So basically they would have to get rid of the second loan? Isn't there a way to do the FHASecure financing to one loan and decrease the mortgage payment and maybe keep the second loan? I don't know.......I feel like everytime I see a light at the end of the tunnel the door gets shut in our face once again.
I called CW to see if we qualify and apparently the county limit for our area is $381,000 and our home appraised at $417,000 (low) to $426,000 (high). We owe about $465,000 so we're under then she tried the conventional loan which we also didn't qualify for because we would end up owing about $56,000. I looked up the FHASecure frequently asked questions and came across this statement:
With FHASecure, the lender will not automatically disqualify you because you are delinquent on your loan, and the lender may offer you a second mortgage to make up the difference between the value of your property and what you owe, including standard refinancing costs.
Wouldn't this statement apply...what determines whether or not the lender offers you this? Do they want to see us in foreclosure before they offer any assistance? What's your take on this?

[Cat Damiano]

The existing first mortgage must accept the proceeds of the H4H loan as full settlement of all outstanding indebtedness.

Existing subordinate lenders must release their outstanding mortgage liens.

which before going through the process, both of these issues would need to be negotiated and put in place between you and the lender.


unfortunately with the FHA Secure it has been around since July 2008 and we have not had any reported successes with that program.........and the investor on the loan would still need to accept a short payoff.....which we are not seeing them participate in..........this participation would be up to the investor on your loan and would also need to be addressed by Countrywide to see if that is a possibility for you on your loan.........


Does it matter that the value of my home is now less than what I still owe?

Not to FHA but the mortgage lender considering the refinance would have to be willing to accept a short payoff on the existing loan OR to hold a second mortgage to make up the difference needed to pay off the existing mortgage and the home's value.



If I have first and second mortgages can both loans be included in FHASecure?

Yes, but only if the combined amount is within the FHA geographical loan limit. If the combined amount exceeds the FHA loan limit and/or the loan-to value limit, your lender could offer you a second mortgage to make up the difference.

Both options are still up to the investor on the loan...........this is the participation that we have not seen yet...........



Believe me I feel your pain...................the investors on Chase loans have not consider either program yet..........so most here are in the exact same boat as you.

[w.davis]

Hello everyone,

I finally was assigned a negotiatior from our situation which is a 30 year interest only loan. It's actually two loans one with an interest rate of 6.75% and the other with a rate of 10.375%. We have to call her with all our income and expenses to determine what we would qualify for. She did mention possibly a re-payment plan in which we would make the minimum monthly payment and at the end of the four months the amount that we did not pay would be added to the balance of the loan. At that time our loan would be sent over for review again to see if we qualify for any programs to have our loan modified. My only concern is if we don't qualify for any new programs our mortgage payment could possibly be higher because of the balance increasing. Does anyone have any experience with this type of re-payment plan under our situation and what happened? I don't want to take the risk if it could hurt us in the long run.....can anyone offer any assistance or advice?

[Cat Damiano]

You will have to wait and see what they come back with after submitting your financials...........if they do come back with a repayment roll to modification there have been other members that have completed this type of workout and then were given the modification after......and it is a leap of faith without guarantees...........which is the hardest part.....

Please keep us posted on what they say........

[w.davis]

Hello everyone,
Well.....after approximately 4 months of talking to several people and being told different stories we were finally assigned a negotiator. We currently have two loans the first is an interest only loan witha a balance of $379,016 with an interest rate of 6.75% and the second is a 15 year conv. balloon with a balance of $70,731 and an interest rate of 10.375%. According to our negotiator she says she can't touch the first loan because the investor is Fannie Mae and they have to abide by their guidelines which she refuses to tell us what they are. After going back and forth with her on Friday, today my husband calls her and she stated that she spoke with her supervisor and they may be able to offer a repayment plan on the first loan but she won't know until this afternoon. My only concern is we would be able to make minimum payments for 3 or 4 months and she's assured us that we won't be reported to the credit bureau as being delinquent on our payments but when we asked her to provide that to us in writing she stated she couldn't. We don't feel comfortable taking their word for it considering their recent history and we definitely do not want to be reported negatively to the credit bureau. We've never been behind on our mortgage payment and we have really good credit, we don't want to ruin that and we've been asking for assistance from CW for a few months now. More so now since our payment will go up on the first loan because our taxes have increased and apparently they were not taking out enough throughout the year to cover the full amount so now we're under and we need to make that up by increasing our payment.
Our second loan she has offered a rate decrease and she suggested she MAY be able to decrease the rate to between 4% and 5% which would make our payment about $300 less on the second loan. But with our payment going up on the first loan because of our taxes we are still going to end up paying about $300 more so it really still isn't helping us.
Is anyone familiar with Fannie Mae guidelines or in a similar situation and has had success with CW on their loan mod.? We desperately need the help and we've been going back and forth with the negotiator, who is really nice but she won't budge when we inquired about forgiving the second loan, she stated she couldn't do that. I don't understand why if the investor is Fannie Mae on the first loan but not the second. Can anyone offer any advice?

[Cat Damiano]

FannieMae doesn't back secondary loans. Your loan is a fixed-rate, 30-year mortgage for less than $417,000, this is why Fannie Mae owns your mortgage. They and Freddie Mac own or guarantee most of the low fixed rate mortgages that were under the 417k conventional loan limit.

The workout options that they offer are for customers that are in default by 90+ days, this could be why you are not able to get help on the first loan.

[w.davis]

So do they not offer any type of assistance for any of the loans they service? Not even an extension on the 30 years or a rate decrease.....anything at all? Do you have any other advice as far as what other steps we may be able to take. Would we qualify for any other programs such as the H4H on December 1st or do we need to fall behind on mortgage payments in order to qualify for anything?

[w.davis]

I forgot to ask.....what are the chances of having a principal reduction on the second loan? We inquired about it but our negotiator said no with no explanation.....is there something else we need to do or say to hopefully qualify for a principal reduction based on similar comps in our neighborhood? We checked our home builder and they are selling similar homes in our neighborhood with the same square footage for $360,000....our total loan was $460,000....the same home is selling for $100,000 less than ours. $360,000 is the base price without upgrades or larger lot premiums. The price we paid includes all of that. Can you give me any advice?

[Cat Damiano]

The reductions would be up to the investor as well...........some offer small reductions on seconds......but it would seem that the investor on your second does not have that as an option and is only willing to do a rate reduction.
For the H4H program you can not have the second lien............it would need to release and extinguish.

The options from Fannie Mae mostly reaches out to homeowners that are in severe hardship and facing foreclosure because the rates are already down to what the market rate is.............that is as low as they go for rate reductions. They do have the option of extending out the term years...........but again they are working with customers that are in default by at least 60-90 days.

Have you called NACA to see if they may have any options for you also?
click on the link for more information..........
NACA

[w.davis]

So we wouldn't qualify for the H4H because we have a second loan? Are you familiar with any programs at all that may be out there for people in our situation?

[Cat Damiano]

Only what the investors are doing with modifications...........and checking with NACA to see if they have any programs to help.

[w.davis]

Has anyone agreed to a repayment plan with Countrywide and if so did you have any problems during the repayment time? Our negotiator is offering us a repayment plan for four months on our first loan so that we can show we are delinquent and they can submit to Fannie Mae after the four months to lower our interest rate and extend the loan an additional 10 years. Our credit is good and we have never been behind on our mortgage payments. Our negotiator also told us during the repayment time we would not be reported to the credit bureau as beeing delinquent. Has anyone gone through a repayment plan and after the time frame were you approved for a modification on the loan or were you stuck with paying back the amounts you didn't pay during the repayment time frame. Please shed some light, we don't want to agree to this if they've had customers with bad experiences. If anyone is out there with any feedback please share! Thanks!

[w.davis]

We were approved for a repayment plan in November 2008 and the repayment plan is for 4 months which is due to expire April 2009 and making our first payment due in May which will include the unpaid amount's that were not paid during the 4 months.

We have two loans with CW. We were able to decrease our 1st loan from $2700 a month to $2300 and the second loan we managed to modify to a much affordable amount.

My question to anyone and everyone who visits this forum is whether or not anyone has had any luck with getting their loan modified permanently after going through a repayment plan for a set amount of time. How difficult was it to get it modified?

When we initially set out to request assistance from CW in August of 2008 we also got the run around and we also spoke to someone different and each person also gave us a different response to the same questions we asked them. After going through all that I came across this forum which provided several e-mail addresses to write to and forward the hardship letter which I did and within a week I had a call from the Office of the President informing us that our loan doc's were being sent to our negotiator and they would be calling us within a few days. She also provided me with the negotiator's contact information and I made the initial call to find out our status. Needless to say that negotiator didn't last, we have been given at least 5 different negotiators during this whole time. We managed to work out the rate and payment on the second loan which was alot of going back and forth negotiating the terms of the loan. So now we're almost at the end of our 4 month repayment plan on our 1st loan and I would like any advice or input anyone may have as to what steps we need to take to avoid being turned down for a permanent modification.
We would definitely not be able to pay back what we couldn't pay during the 4 months....it's over $10,000!

Any advice anyone can offer would be great. Thank you all, this is a great forum!

[Cat Damiano]

you may be eligible for the new Home Affordable modification program that was just announced on March 4th..........
here is the link to the info for CW and the program...........
Countrywide Financial - Real Estate Mortgage Lender - Home Loans - Equity Loan Mortgages



Here is a link to the guidelines of the program.............
http://www.treas.gov/press/releases/...guidelines.pdf

[w.davis]

Since we've been in the repayment plan for 4 months we're in a "contractual delinquency" which is what CW refers to it as....although they said we were not being reported to the credit bureau which I have to request a credit report to make sure that is current.
Will the fact that we're showing delinquent in their account affect us for this new program or any other program for that matter.
Have you heard alot from many of the forum readers as to what would disqualify the borrower from qualifying for the modification. We're soooo concerned that we're going to be stuck with the back pay from the last four months and not be able to pay it and also be reported to the credit bureau and really affect everything we have worked so hard for. Is there any advice you can offer us as to what would disqualify us from being approved. Our income is the same as it was when we qualified for the repayment plan.

[Cat Damiano]

read through the link for the guidelines......if you are in default and you meet the criteria outlined in the guidelines.......you should be able to apply for the Home Affordable modification.

[w.davis]

Hello Cat,

Thank you so much for replying so promptly to my questions. I know when you modify a loan the lender likes you to be within a certain percent positive after all bills are paid to be considered for a mod. Do you know what that percent is and how much positive you have to be each month? Thanks!

[Cat Damiano]

With the Home Affordable modification program..............it doesn't work that way...............your mortgage payments would need to be over the 31% target of the gross income........in order to meet the initial criteria for a modifcation...............this figure does not include a second lien payment.

Front-End DTI is the ratio of PITIA to Monthly Gross Income. PITIA is defined as principal, interest, taxes, insurance (including homeowners insurance and hazard and flood insurance) and homeowners association and/or condominium fees. Mortgage insurance premiums are excluded from the PITIA calculation.


here are the guidelines............
http://www.treas.gov/press/releases/...guidelines.pdf

[w.davis]

ok....so I think I'm a little confused. Our initial mortgage payment on our 1st loan before going into the repayment plan was $2700 once we were approved for the repayment plan for the 4 months it was decreased to $2350.

Can you give me an example of how exactly everything is calculated to qualify for the mod?