Larry had lived on his family farm for over 10 years where he had raised cattle and enjoyed life near his grandchildren. When he became disabled in 2010, he was not able to work the farm as vigorously as before, but hated to see it go. He contacted his mortgage company and they sent him an application for assistance and told him to postpone sending a payment until they could review his options.
The application process drug out for months which turned into years. There were countless mailings of documents back and forth, and each time the file was closed out before a review could be completed. During this time the mortgage fell further and further behind. By the time Larry contacted Apprisen, he was not even looking for housing information; Instead he was filing Chapter 7 bankruptcy to try to save the home which was over $100,000 in arrears.
Throughout the course of our visits, we talked about different options for the home and that Larry would still need some type of assistance to get the mortgage manageable once the bankruptcy was discharged. I strongly recommended that he try again for a modification with our help. He was understandably cautious, but agreed that there needed to be a permanent solution.
Throughout the course of our counseling sessions, we placed modification and assistance packages/requests. The request was denied twice and we had to appeal, primarily due to a very inaccurate appraisal on his farm. We were into a year of helping Larry and were about to give up hope when he was approved for a Making Home Affordable modification. It took his payment from $1000 a month to $875.He dutifully paid the first 3 months of his 5-month trial period before he was told that the initial payment was declined for unknown reasons. This had triggered the modification to be thrown out and put him back into foreclosure so he could not try to make up the payments before the trial period ended. We hurried to get an appeal to find out why the payment was denied and get the foreclosure status overturned.
On the day the appeal was to be completed, his loan transferred servicers. The results of the appeal were not transferred to the new servicer and all they had in their records was an incomplete trial period. After 4 years of work, we were starting from scratch, once again, with a new modification request.
Gratefully, we had much of the documentation already on hand and Larry, undaunted, provided updated supporting documentation to get the latest submission to the new mortgage servicer. After about four months of review and submissions, he was recently approved for a modification. This time, the payments will be only $550 a month. As a result, his budget is truly balanced for the first time since his initial request for assistance years ago. He is even able to set aside for savings and much needed home repairs.
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