Foreclosure Chapter

The Whistler Blackcomb ski resort is facing foreclosure as creditors holding 1.4 billion U.S dollars of debt on Intrawest ULC didn’t receive a $524 million debt payment from the company. The creditors claim they plan to auction off many of the company’s assets including the resort, on February 19th, a potential disaster for the Olympics which are to be held there around that time.

Indeed, the games open February 12th in Vancouver and Whistler and this snag has put the organizers of the games in a bit of a quandary, to say the least. The auction would be a very unwelcome disruption to the games.

Intrawest, a Vancouver-based company, forced investment banks Lehman Brothers and Capital Management to put up notices in the Wall Street Journal and other popular financial papers in the USA advertising that ski resorts in Whistler, Quebec, Vermont and California would be up for sale. The notice asked that only financial institutions with the means of purchasing the entire membership interests apply.

Despite this setback, the Olympic Games organizing committee remains sure that the games will continue undisturbed. Apparently a business plan has been drawn that will take care of any possible snags.

In these hard times when foreclosures are extremely common and with people looking everywhere for help, it can be hard to know how to find reliable advice you can take to the bank, so to speak. Knowing the difference between good advice and bad advice can often being the difference between saving or losing your home.

There are many different sources of help available, from law firms to the banks themselves. Though legal advice can helpful, it can be hard to find a competent lawyer. The most important thing is to remember to shop around when searching for legal aid. Try to find a lawyer who specializes in foreclosure laws as they will probably be trustworthy. Always read any reviews of law firms you consider.

Though it may seem like a bad idea, the banks can also be very helpful in helping you deal with foreclosure. Though they are the ones who initiate foreclosure, they don’t benefit from it as much as you may think. Sometimes, banks even lose money on foreclosure sometimes. Banks can help you refinance your mortgage plan so you can make your payments on time.

Should you find yourself unable to pay back missed mortgage payments, you will have to become more resourceful in avoiding the foreclosure of your home. This is especially true if you can’t find an agreeable repayment plan that satisfies both you and your lender.

Before you panic though, there is hope but you must not give up. The reality is you are just beginning if you really want to save your home. Don’t fret and take action now. This is really the most important piece of advice we can offer. If you do not, there is little doubt that you will lose your home.

That being said, you have many options available still. If your lender is not interested in arranging a repayment plan, ask them whether they would consider modifying the terms of your loan. This essentially allows you to spread missed payments out evenly into the rest of the life of your mortgage. This will only be an option if your lender has access to your mortgage payments and can actually physically change the terms of your loan. If you are dealing with a mortgage company, this may not be an option.

Remember: act now while there is time. Act and you can save your home, one way or the other. Analyze your situation and your options and determine what works best for you.

The Bank of America does not have a good track record of helping their homeowners modify their mortgage terms in the face of economic recession. If they were more lenient, it would certainly help prevent the foreclosure crisis of the USA from getting worse.
As we all know, President Barack Obama has instigated his administration’s Home Affordable Modification Program with the intention of helping struggling homeowners. However, the plan has not been very successful with no small thanks to the Bank of America. Of their 158,000 homeowners who began a “trial modification” of their mortgage, only 58 have seen any sort of long term change on the terms their mortgages.

Why such a pathetically small number, you may ask? The Bank of America is defending its actions by stating that the majority of their customers are not eligible for aid under HAMP. They also claim that homeowners aren’t filling out their applications and other paperwork properly.

It’s not clear how much there is in all this, but one thing is certain: homeowners are not very happy with the B of A.

Following these five points will help you a lot in solving your foreclosure troubles:

• Talk to your lender.
• Contact the Approved Housing Counsellors
• Only Pay for Service you Receive and Sign a Contract
• Don’t transfer your home to a Debt Relief Company
• Only Pay Mortgage Payments to your Lender

It is so important to talk to your lender. They need to know how you are doing in making your mortgage payments. This reassures them that even if you are not able to make all your payments on time, at least you are aware of the problem are trying to solve it. Many debt relief companies can help you in your journey to get out of foreclosure. Just be wary of scams, like most debt relief companies who may try to scam you out of your money. Some of these companies offer to “take over” your mortgage payments if you pay them instead of your lender. This is a bad idea as many cases have been reported of these companies simply pocketing your payments instead of helping you at all.

15 Day Grace Period: This period of 10-15 days will attract the attention of a creditor that you haven’t made your mortgage payments on your house.

After 16 Days: By this point your creditors know you haven’t made your payment and will assign a late fee. Most creditors will also send out a polite reminder that the payment needs to be cleared.

Day 30: This is the period when you (the homeowner) need to act quickly to stop the foreclosure of your home as you are now in default. The amount of time you have at this point depends on which state you live in and how understanding your lender is. The mortgage and foreclosure process is long and expensive so some lenders may let you try to get it together for a longer period than others. The truth is most banks don’t want to foreclosure your home as they do not get as much profit from this as from you making your payments.

Day 45: At this point your creditors will start to contact you more frequently. Most states prohibit creditors and collection agencies contacting a debtor before 8 AM or after 9 PM. The best thing to do is to talk to the lender to find out if they are prepared to be flexible.

Day 60: The lender will typically send the borrower a default notice by registered mail. The borrower is normally given 30 days to clear any outstanding mortgage arrears and stop home foreclosure. If no action is taken to remedy the situation, the case will be escalated to an internal legal department.

Day 90: The internal legal department sends all relevant documentation to a local department in order to commence the mortgage foreclosure process. It is important to note that a homeowner is given every opportunity to stop home foreclosure at any point up until the gavel falls in a property auction.

Despite the efforts of many banks through Barack Obama’s aid, foreclosures still run rampant through the United States. The Treasury Department’s Home Affordable Modification Program has tried to help over 700,000 homeowners from losing their homes, but government data shows that close to 95% of those homeowners run into problems in the not-too-distant future.

The program has been running for around nine months now, yet the foreclosure crisis continues. It has been declared a failure by a few superintendents of banks throughout the country, and some criticize it of helping only a small number of homeowners while sucking a great deal of our citizen’s tax dollars.

Despite these criticisms, the Obama administration stands behind the program. While they acknowledge the need to continue to ensure that the aid remains permanent, they also claim the program has been successful in achieving many of its goals.

There have been around 5 million foreclosures in the USA since the economy took a dip in 2007, and there could be as many as 8 million more on the way within the next five years. What aid will accompany that passage of time waits to be seen.

Around one year ago, a Pittsburgh family of two children, a thirteen year old daughter and a son starting college, thought they were going to lose their home. Thankfully, a foreclosure aid program provided by their county allowed them to get the advice they needed to help themselves out of the financial crisis.

The family was facing a judicial foreclosure of their two-story, three-bedroom home, where they had lived for close to 14 years. They worried that the foreclosure might be the start of a huge financial downward spiral.

Fortunately, the family realized they needed help. They found it in the form of a pink sheet enclosed with their foreclosure notice. The sheet told of the Allegheny County program which provided credit counsellors and attorneys if they needed, all for the end of renegotiating mortgage terms so that families like them could keep their homes.

The family promptly called the hotline number and thankfully were able to remain in their houses after a year of hard work and negotiating. They encourage other families which are in a similar situation to not wait and reach out for help.

It is so important to have a plan when you are facing foreclosure. It’s true that is some relief out there and we are starting to big banking firms help out by extending their terms in hopes that their borrowers will catch up, but all the same you are responsible for keeping your home.

It is very important that you save up money with the goal to get caught up on your mortgage. Pay back the payments you have missed and bite the bullet and pay your interest. Late fees, attorney fees will probably apply also, but these are essential to avoiding foreclosure. Be aware though, that there are often thousands of extra dollars you will need to pay in order to do this. This is especially true if your lender has already got a lawyer or law firm involved to push the foreclosure upon you.

The well-known lender Marshall & Ilsley Corp. has announced Tuesday that their current foreclosure moratorium term is going to be extended by a 90-day period, allowing homeowners whose mortgages are handled through the firm to get caught up on payments. The moratorium began over a year ago on Dec 18, 2008 and will as of now continue until the last day of March.

Understandably, many homeowners see this extension as a welcome breath of fresh air. A great number of homeowners with mortgages under the firm have been having a hard time making their payments and this extension will undoubtedly stop a good number of foreclosures.