Voluntary mortgage assistance is illusory
My inquiries among other bankruptcy lawyers nationwide has yet to unearth a real, live homeowner who has been able to meaningfully rework a bad mortgage into a tolerable one. Not one homeowner.
From where I sit, I cannot tell whether it’s because the lenders are unwilling to do anything significant or because the homeowners are not effective in asking for enough to make a difference. Which ever it is, the foreclosure avalanche continues.
I suspect that the lenders (or their agents, the mortgage servicers) haven’t committed to making meaningful changes and haven’t staffed their loss mitigation departments with sufficiently empowered employees. It isn’t enough to allow a delinquent borrower to make a payment and a half til they catch up, or to tack the arrears onto the end of an ever adjusting ARM.
Which makes it more imperative that Congress pass, and the President sign, the Foreclosure Prevention Act with its provision allowing the modification of existing mortgages on family homes in bankruptcy.