My sister has had a run of financial problems, losing her job and then dealing with husband’s illness, children’s legal problems, you name it. Both her and spouse have good jobs and steady income.
Several years ago she filed Chapter 13 (100% repayment) to save her house but due to various problems she’s had to refile twice. So now her payments are $2600 a month and she is facing forclosure again.
She has been getting a lot of offers in the mail for alternatives to filing Chapter 13 and some are obviously too high risk like lease option where you involve an investor. She’s also been talking to a “forclosure mediation specialist” who says he can work with her mortgage company and get them to reinstate the loan and extend it by however many payments are past due. The fee for the mediator is about $500.
She asked what I thought about it and honestly I have never heard of it. But searching online for the name of the mediator reveals that he has been in business for 12 years and is a member of the Better Business Bureau.
So all you finance minded types, is this legit? Any comments or suggestions. It all seems too easy.
Hmmm… can’t say I have ever heard of that either, and I can’t imagine a bank extending more credit to someone who the already know can’t pay what is due.
Doesn’t mean the company isn’t legit, but on the face of it it just doesn’t make sense.
Personally, I think consulting an attorney would be a better use of her money (and probably less than $500 for an initial consultation).
If she knows she is going to lose the ouse anyway, she may want to ask said attorney if a deed in lieu of forclosure is an option (where the house is deeded back to the bank, and they agree not to foreclose). She would still lose the house, and still have the ding on her credit, but not as bad as if she actually gets foreclosed on.
The other option is if she has someone who can by the house (depending on how far this has gone, that may or may not be possible). I just closed a deal last week where this was done. A sad thing to see, but the end result was that the seller did not have a foreclosure on her record, and the buyer got the home for a good price.
Wish I could offer you more help than that, Mermaid, but I thought I would throw some things out there for you to think about.