HAMP Experiences: Did it go through if not why?

[Rahaton]

Howdy,

I am looking for anyone else who is trying to get a modification through the HAMP (Obama plan) program. At present we are in the process of getting a modification (we hope) but there is some odd shenanigans going on with the bank that I would like to know if this is a matter for concern.

We were approved for a reduced payment and were placed on the three payment plan. We have made those payments.

As seems to be the case with lots of people they kept losing parts of our documentation but after faxing it a couple-three times it is all in order. A month went into this process so we made another payment at the trial rate.

So this Saturday we got two letters that are contradictory in a way. The first was a letter saying that all our documentation was on file and we just had to wait 45-60 days for the investors to approve. The other was a letter from a law firm saying they were trying to get the stay lifted with respect to the mortgage.

Needless to say I am confused and a bit worried. All the while we were on the trial plan we have been falling further behind because the payments are $500 less a month and presumably the delinquency has been aging and moving us closer to foreclosure.

So, has anyone else been in this situation? If you have been denied do you know why? When did it happen in the process? We have been "modifying" for 4 1/2 months now.

Even if you can't talk to our specific situation how did your HAMP modification go or go south?

Thanks!

[lifelesson]

my hubby called our lender before BK and tried to see if we could do this. We were not allowed silly us were up to date on payments.

I wish you luck.

[IBroke]

my hubby called our lender before BK and tried to see if we could do this. We were not allowed silly us were up to date on payments.

I wish you luck.

As far as I know, being current does NOT mean that you aren't qualified. If you had a hardship (loss of income) and meet all the other requirements and guidelines, you can still get a modification. Being late is not a requirement.

[IBroke]

Rahaton,

We are on the trial as well (just made our second payment) and our paperwork is complete. However, we are still waiting for a signed copy of the Modification Trial Period Plan Agreement. This month, the Modification Agreement is due as well.

Did you receive your signed copy (signed by the lender) of the Trial Plan and your Modification Agreement? If yes, when?

Thanks!

[justbroke]

HAMP Experiences: Did it go through if not why?

While I wouldn't call it the Obama Plan, HAMP (and HOPE) does allow you to modify if you have an ARM type loan and it's about to re-adjust. I wouldn't bet on HAMP though. It's a voluntary program as far as the lenders are concerned. Sometimes, a straight modification with your lender is easier.

As for the stay being lifted, any lender will tell that pending modifications (under HAMP or HOPE or "YOUWISHYOUCOULDKEEPYOURHOME" programs) will not stop ongoing foreclosure proceedings. Until they approve the package, and it reads like the "investors" haven't... they generally proceed with foreclosure. They may forestall the sale, but they will certainly get their ducks lined up to foreclose.

I had gone through the same things pre-modification with my lender. They finally came up with a "plan" 2-days before the Trustee sale, and the day I filed bankruptcy, which killed the modification.

Are you saying that you're already in Bankruptcy (active) and you had a modification in progress? I would be surprised if they still had it on the table.

[Rahaton]

Just some more info, we are in an active bk and we had started the modification process before filing. I discussed this with my lender and they actually said that it was fine to file, they just would need to have our attorney give them permission to talk to us during the stay. Since we have filed we made a payment and sorted out some more paperwork issues and they are fine with the situation.

Now, after I posted this I re-read everything and realized that it is not actually the first mortgage that is requesting lifting the stay. It is the second, I was confused because the second mortgage is with a nearly identically named company and all the numbers they were referring to was from the deficiency with the first mortgage.

It looks like I might have hit a hair splitting special case. Right now, if you add up the numbers on the two mortgages including the deficiency on the first we have -$100 equity in the house using the property tax valuation we used. So technically there interest is not totally protected. (At this point they tack on $500 of lawyer fees so we are now $600 negative.)

Now, if they had just waited until this month's payment goes through then all the numbers will be on the positive side.

So if I just cough up, $600 to the second mortgage to cover the $100 bucks and fees would that make this problem go away? We might be a month behind on the 2nd right now since there is some question on how to pay them, we used to have them directly take the money from the account but now that is off.

Is there a kind of universal default for mortgages that is in play here?

Other random facts, it was a fixed rate 30 year mortgage like your dad had, nothing exotic. I lost a job and haven't found work, that is why we need the mod. We can basically live on my wife's salary with the mod and bk.

I will look at the thread in the morning and add anything else I missed. I just wanted to get this up before bed.

[tkharvey]

Yes, I do have experience with the HAMP as we tried to modify our loan as well. My husband is in real estate and his income droped by over fifty percent. I was so hopeful that this was the answer we were looking for, as we could no longer afford our 3,200 a month payment. The modification would bring our payments down to 1,800. We filled out all the necessary paperwork, copies of tax returns, pay stubs, etc, made the three trial payments on time (even wired the money just to make sure it was received) and after my last "trial payment" was received, the lender said it would take up to sixty days for the "investor" to take a look at it. We then got a phone call telling us we were denied. When I asked why, they said that even if we lowered the interest rate, it still wouldn't bring us down to the 31% that was required. When I asked about extending term to 40 years or forebearing some principal (which is what they told me they could do in the beginning), they said they were't "required" to do anything and that since our loan wasn't held with Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, but rather a "private investor", that it wasn't approved. This just made the decision easier for us to surrender our home and file a 7 instead of a 13. I know that there are instances where this program is approved, however so I don't want to be totally negative. Hopefully, yours will be one of the few that will get approved. Good luck.

[Rahaton]

I know it is rude to follow up on my own post (tkharvey's post was not here when I typed this). But I a quick question and a rant.

First the question, did this problem stem from the -$100 equity in the numbers?

Now the rant, if that is the case I am not a happy camper because the opposing council who drew up this motion used the precise value for our second mortgage but estimated the first mortgage by rounding up to the nearest $10k, so when you use the honest numbers we actually have $5k in positive equity.

So, if the answer to my first question is that it did not matter, then this is just sloppy. But if it did matter then this guy is either a dips**t or dishonest in the extreme. Even my kids in grade school know about significant digits and adding estimates, once you round to the nearest $10k you can't say anything about a hundred bucks one way or the other.

[Rahaton]

our loan wasn't held with Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, but rather a "private investor"

Unless ours has been sold again it is held by Fannie or Freddie, so we do have that going for us. Sorry to hear yours did not work out.

[Rahaton]

Rahaton,
Did you receive your signed copy (signed by the lender) of the Trial Plan and your Modification Agreement? If yes, when?

We did get one in that time frame, the second month or so. With us they wanted the first payment "right now" and then the others were scheduled. The way things happened meant we had almost 6 weeks between our first and second payment when we took care of the paper work.

One thing though is that we did not get a copy signed by the lender, we signed our copy and sent it in to the lender where presumably they signed it. Will this come back to bite us, it most assuridly will Actually, I am not worried and am sure they signed it since we had the documentation gone over 50 times since then.

The biggest thing I took away from the whole process is to call them all the time. They had all sorts of issues with the documentation we submitted, they would lose it, or it was not signed in the right place (things like each page had to be signed and not just the last signature page.)

I really got the impression that they are scrambling to get the program up and running and nobody knew for sure what they need. We were just courteous each time we called and promptly faxed in any documentation the asked for that day. (Next week we then called to make sure it was correct and in their system, again always courteous.)

One final note, in looking through our papers I saw that our mortgage is definitely owned by Freddie Mac. Is there a better success rate with them than others?

[justbroke]

I had similar issues on my modification. Luckily, I use an electronic FAX service and all my "documentation" is already together. I can resend it with about 5 clicks of the mouse! It came in handy.

Stating that "the package is lost" or "can you send it again" and other similar stall tactics, appear to be common. As you stated, it's just frustrating and you wonder what they're really doing.

[relief13035]

We were successful with the HAMP loan modification. Couldn't be happier. First off we were never late, even when I applied for the loan modification. We made our 3 trial payments on time. Sept. 1st was our 3rd trial payment. Two weeks after that we received an overnight UPS package with our final documents. They congratulated us on being approved and these are our terms:

Years 1-5 @ 2% interest
Year 6 @ 3%
Year 7 @ 4%
Years 8-17 @ 4.875%

My loan was Freddie Mac and this cut my mortgage payment by $800/month. What a blessing!

[Tryingtokeep]

We are still fighting to get ours. Seemed like a no-brainer since we have a Freddie Mac loan, steady income, suffered a hardship (loss of income last with new job started last year) and a payment now at around 39% of our combined gross income. Our servicer was Taylor Bean and Whitaker who was shut down by the government and our loan was since transferred to Ocwen ( lucky us, said with much sarcasm). I also have been working with a HUD certified company to assist in the process. I was stunned when I heard today that we were denied because the payment was already below 31% of our income. WTF. Whose income are they looking at, not ours. Hopefully they realize the mistake after I pointed it out and reconsider. This process has been a nightmare and it really seems like they would rather just push us into foreclosure than try to work something out. Looks like we may be another foreclosure statistic.

[IBroke]

This evening, we and other homeowners will meet an expert and ask all the questions we want answered. We were told by a local councelor (from the 1-888-995-HOPE hotline) that they are doing a "question and answer"-hour today.

I will ask about NPV and much, much more....

[Ann]

We were successful with the HAMP loan modification. Couldn't be happier. First off we were never late, even when I applied for the loan modification. We made our 3 trial payments on time. Sept. 1st was our 3rd trial payment. Two weeks after that we received an overnight UPS package with our final documents. They congratulated us on being approved and these are our terms:

Years 1-5 @ 2% interest
Year 6 @ 3%
Year 7 @ 4%
Years 8-17 @ 4.875%

My loan was Freddie Mac and this cut my mortgage payment by $800/month. What a blessing!

relief, who is your mortgage company?