Most Americans grow up dreaming of having a white picket fence, two cars in the driveway, a chicken in a pot, and two adorable, ruddy-cheeked children. It is the American dream, and certainly the home behind those little white sentinels is one of the biggest parts of that dream. If you are confronting a possible home foreclosure that threatens to shatter your American dream, it may be possible to stop home foreclosure. Stop home foreclosure strategies do exist and before you give up on your slice of the home ownership pie, you would be well advised to look into some of the ways you can stop home foreclosure.
If you have not yet fallen behind on your mortgage payments, but feel that you are likely to do so because you have lost your job, become disabled, or had some other financial crisis, you are in a lot better shape than you may think. Since you are not yet behind, your lender will likely be interested in helping you keep your home and avoid having your house go into foreclosure status.
If you have missed one payment, you will likely get notification from your lender. That correspondence will probably ask you to contact them via mail, in person, or online. Your first instinct may be to avoid contacting them at all and just try to hang on as long as you can, but it is not wise to avoid your banker. You and your lender had an agreement that was reached under certain circumstances; if the circumstances have changed, you would do well to be honest with your lender.
Before you do contact the assigned representative at your financial institution, however, you should prepare yourself and become informed about your own particular loan terms and financial situation. Go to your filing cabinet or shoebox and get out your loan and house paperwork. Read it over again and understand it. You may discover that your lender has clauses that specifically refer to ways to stop home foreclosure or what to do if you find yourself in a situation that makes repayment difficult or impossible.
If you are uncomfortable with the legal jargon or just plain antsy about the situation, you may consider hiring a company or legal representative who specializes in helping people stop home foreclosure. You can look online, check your local yellow pages, ask friends or business associates for referrals, or call a professional association (such as the Bar Association in your state) to find a reputable professional. Many professionals are willing and able to negotiate payment.
If you have been the victim of predatory lending, you may even have legal recourse against your lender. With the housing boom of several years ago, there was an increase in such practices, and many homeowners have successfully sued lenders who used less-than-reputable lending practices while everyone was in the market for a home.
You may be able to re-negotiate the terms of your loan, or undergo loan modification. You may be able to negotiate short-refinance terms. You may be able to do short-sale negotiations. There are other options that may be available as well. You may think that the bank is just sitting there waiting for you to miss a payment so they can swoop down and take your house back, but lenders have too many foreclosures to deal with. They would much rather prevent or stop home foreclosure than start it.
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