You do not have to miss a mortgage payment to get a loan modification. Our Attorney's negotiate loan modifications all the time and the homeowner is not late on any payments. Your loan modification will depend on your financial hardship. If you are in process of trying a loan modification and find that you get denied by your bank, don't give up. Our loan modification Attorney's in orange county california have been successful negotiating laon modifications for homeowners that tried it on their own and were denied. In general, the Attorneys will collect all your information up front to determine if they can be successful with your loan modification, they are almost 100% successful and over 100% money back gaurantee.

Hello Doug and thanks for your question.

Hopefully, your question will be read by enough people and we can finally dispel the mistruth about modifications and that is that you do NOT have to be delinquent in the payment of your mortgage in order to request a loan modification. However, you must show and prove a "hardship" to request the modification. Modifications are not for those who can pay their bill and for whom no hardship exists to require the lender to consider changes to the terms of the loan.

"Hardship" can come in any of thel forms: 1) loss of job; 2) decrease in wages; 3) medical hardship or incapacity; 4) increased monthly mortgage, which creates a hardship because the monthly amounts have increased to higher amounts.

Be prepared to have documents, papers and statements that can be shown to the bank in order to prove hardship. As Scott noted below, a homeowner does not need to engage an attorney or debt resolution specialist in order to request a loan modification, but many do simply because they do not have enough time in their day to "bird dog" the mortgage company enough to get the file reviewed and the modification completed. If you are naturally tenacious and willing to spend the hours and hours on the phone that it takes to request the modification, then you should be successful. Try http://www.helpforhomeowners.org first to see if you can get the loan modified without help.

If you cannot devote the time it takes to request the modification by yourself, then a modification specialist can and often will help and will provide the legal "muscle" necessary to get the lender's immediate attention. Also, I find that a modification company can tell me and my clients very quickly whether their specific circumstance would qualify for a loan modification--sometimes, the numbers just don't work in the client's favor.

If your loan is successfully modified, you will not--to my knowledge--your FICO score may not be damaged or might have only a small decrease, since you will continue to pay and will not show any late payments or only minimal late payments on your account. Contrast this with a short sale in which the FICO score can be lowered by 70-100 points or a foreclosure that can damage a FICO score by as much as 250 points.

Good luck!

Sincerely,
Grace Morioka, SRES, e-Pro
Area Pro Realty
San Jose, CA

Hi Doug,

First let me say that you shouldn't be paying anyone to do a loan mod for you. If you feel you must, check out car.org or to the CA Dept of Real Estate's website to get more information about credentialling these businesses. If you take money for loan mods you must be approved by the DRE.

Lenders are saying that you "must" go in default. Before you do this, get a guarantee in writing that you will be approved. They won't do this. What the lenders are looking for is some "skin off your back". Their belief is that why should they modify your loan if you are current and making the payments.

I am the office expert on short sale listings, something I am not very fond of, but I know how the lenders work. I have never seen a loan mod workout. If you go in arrears on your loan, then they want you to catch up and pay a large sum of money as a penalty, disguised as something else.

If you need me to talk to your lender on your behalf I will for no cost. Let me know. I have a personal vendetta against these lenders. Thanks!!

Scott Thiel, REALTOR
530-701-6674
lic 00987674

Doug,

You don't need to miss your payment to qualify for loan modification but this program is for those who are having financial hardship, so if you are facing some kind of financial hardship then check with your lender, you might qualify for loan modification.