Loan Mod Question - Using 3rd Party

[zaido]

Hello everyone,

Here's my story...I too am currently trying to work with a third party although I am not sure I can believe what they have adviced some of their clients. One of their suggestion to a client was to stop paying their mortgage with Indymac which I think may be a mistake, because it was such a sudden move. The person was not delinquent by any means, but the suggestion stems from them having only an Interest Only payment. The reason the third party was using is "why pay the IO payment" since they will eventually have to lower that payment for the "possible" lower principal of the home, which in Vallejo, CA, have gone down over 50% in some locations.

What do you think of this situation because I am also on an IO and I am on my 3rd year? I have a 5/1 ARM, but I am not really very well versed on this whole mortgage matter. I am trying to learn as much as I can. Thank goodness for this forum. I would love not to pay but not for the wrong reasons. I may eventually end up in the same position as a lot of folks on Loan Safe. I have also depleted my savings. I also ran up credit card bills when gas prices skyrocketed due to my commute. I want to do this right and I'm hoping to get this matter cleared up.

My first is with CitiMortgage around $360,000 and 2nd with Chase - around $90,000. My home value is now around $249,000 at the most.

I have not tried to contact Citi since I have the 3rd party in place and they already noted to Citi that the they will be authorized on my behalf, but there has not been any movement for 2 months. Citi has acknowledged that the 3rd party did make contact by the way.

Thanks in advance everyone.

[Moe Bedard]

Hi zaido,

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

Did you check them out on the bbb?

I am glad that you were able to check up on them and make sure that they were working on your behalf, but two months of not hearing anything is a little long.........


I am not sure that our Citi contact number will deal with a third party because it was put in place to help their customers that are members of Loan Safe..........

You may want to call yourself and let them know that you are a member of Loan Safe and to see what options the investor on your loan has......
1-866-255-3901

[zaido]

Hi ***,

The 3rd party is a new company so I don't think they would have any records with the BBB. They seem to have a lot of clients at this time. I know that's not a good reason to use them, but I went in with one foot only and see where it goes. I will call the # you gave and I'll give an update.

Thanks!

[zaido]

Update.

I contacted Citi and spoke to Joe. He wasn't able to provide information who the investor is but did direct me to move ahead and complete the Workable Solutions Application as well as provide a Hardship letter explaining our situation. I hope I can get all they need to them by the due date of Tuesday.

[zaido]

***,

By the way. Should we also contact Chase in our case?

[zaido]

***,

Can you look over this Hardship letter? How does this look?

To Whom It May Concern,

I am writing this letter to explain my unfortunate set of circumstances that will most likely cause us to become delinquent on our mortgage. We have done everything in our power to make ends meet but unfortunately we seem to be falling short and would like you to consider working with us to modify our loan. Our number one goal is to keep our home and we would really appreciate the opportunity to do that.

Several reasons are contributing to our situation so something very drastic has to happen. Here are the main issues that we believe will contribute to this.
*Bonus cut – Just last week, it was announce in my workplace that we are not getting our usual expected bonuses. This effectively cut my salary about 3 months worth for the year.
*No Raise for 2009.
*Loosing free child care – We will be losing our free childcare. The cost will be about $150 per child per month. We have 2 children that are in elementary.
*Credit Card Bills – Unfortunately, we ran our cards up due to the gas expenses we acquired due to our commute. I know that gas prices are not an issue at this time since it’s quite a bit lower than $4.00 per gallon, but how long that will be, we don’t know.

It is our goal to keep the home since our children’s school and my wife has just been hired at a closer location. We have cut as much from our expenses as we can from taking the kids out of their after school activities to going out for lunches and dinners may be ones a month if at all. I have also sold the extra car we had as well as carpooling as much as possible since parking by my workplace costs about $20 per day. I want to make sure we don’t fall behind the mortgage. We believe we can catch back up when we are able to clear the credit card bills and hopefully the economy turns around.

>>
Beginning in January of 2009 paying the current amount will be close to impossible due to our financial situation. We believe a loan modification would benefit us all parties involved. We would appreciate it if you can work with us to lower our amount owed and/or payment and continue doing business with CitiMortgage.

We truly hope that you will consider working with us and we are looking forward to getting this settled so we all can move on.

Sincerely and Respectfully,>>

Thanks again.

[Moe Bedard]

It looks good...........and yes if you are wanting to modify your second as well you would need to contact Chase separately.........

Chase Loss Mitigation
1-800-848-9136

[zaido]

***,

One question I forgot to ask.

If we miss that deadline, is there a consequence to it? It sure sounded like there was a concequence when and if you miss the deadline.

[zaido]

Well ***, my story went from bad to worse. I have just been laid off. I was trying to get this whole mess cleaned up without modification, but now I had to elect not to pay this months mortgage. I had to. I will contact Joe again and see what we can even do. I didn't want to have to go this route. I may even look into getting all our debt cleared and just start over. Ugh!

[Moe Bedard]

zaido,

I am so sorry to hear this.............

If you are going to be receiving unemployment benefits, you may want to see if that is something that can be used..........they may not be able to, but it is worth a shot.

I wish you the best with whatever you decide.

[zaido]

Update: Spoke to a rep with Citimortgage again today. I gave them more details about my situation. I stated that my previous workplace will have me on payroll until March. With that they told me they really cannot help me with my modification until I'm actually unemployed since it will be based on the current income that I will have. At this point keeping my mortgage current seems like a lost cause since I will not be eating when I fall off the payroll. Now the biggest decision is whether to keep the mortgage current or keep the money for what's coming. It seems like a lose lose situation for me now. I didn't want to fall behind, but the fact is, I will have to. Now I will have to wait until March to get this process going.

[zaido]

I just found out that Citimortgage is the investor. I don't know if that's good or not. Maybe when they nationalize the bank it will.

[zaido]

Hi ***,

Can I verify if the Chase number is still the same? I tried calling and it just cuts me off.

Thanks.

[Moe Bedard]

Chase
1-866-550-5705