Update on the House

I’ve gotten a lot of emails from people wondering about the house situation.

I thought I’d fill you in on the latest…

If this happens to be your first time stopping by here, three weeks ago we got a letter from a lawyer letting us know our house had officially gone into active foreclosure.

Without going into all the details (you can find them if you go back through the blog a couple years and just start reading) and in a nutshell, the past three years have been rough for us due to a whole number of unexpected fucked up things and a few bad decisions on our part, and ultimately, we ended up very far behind on our mortgage payments.

It took us a couple years, but we are finally back in a situation where we are making enough money to cover our expenses.

When you find yourself in this situation where you are months (and months) behind on your mortgage, you learn that the mortgage company will not accept partial payments.

Once you are behind, they require the entire arrearage at once.

All or nothing.

Shit.

In that case you are definitely fucked. Because if you were in a position where you couldn’t make your mortgage payments at all, there’s no way you’re gonna be able to come up with three or ten or twenty payments at once.

So you have a couple options. You can apply for a loan modification. There are different types of these. They may agree to tack the entire amount you are behind on the back end of the mortgage and let you start fresh and make your monthly payments from a clean slate. Sometimes the mortgage company will modify the amount of your monthly payment for a certain period of time. If you are lucky they might do both.

When you are applying for these modifications, a home preservation specialist asks you to provide a whole shitload of papers.

Our home preservation specialist’s name is Tyrone.

You have to fill out lots of paperwork. You have to provide copies of pay stubs. If you are in business for yourself, you need to provide profit and loss statements. You need copies of the last few months of bank statements.

You fill all this stuff out and fax it to Tyrone.

There is a good chance you will fill something out incorrectly or forget to fax the fourteenth page of your bank statement that has absolutely no writing on it at all. And then Tyrone will call you and tell you your paperwork is incomplete and that you must fax him that blank piece of paper. Immediately.

He might tell you he doesn’t need your most recent tax return.

Phew.

So you get him that blank piece of paper and all your paperwork is finally complete.

Then you get a phone call from Tyrone two days later.

He tells you he was wrong. He needs you tax return for 2015.

You ask him when he needs it.

He tells you  he needs it, um, tomorrow.

What the fuck?

It’s nowhere near April 15th!

So you rush to get your taxes done.

A week later, you get your taxes to Tyrone.

He lets you know he has everything he needs.

Then he submits your paperwork to an underwriter who goes through your paperwork with a fine tooth comb.

The underwriter will call you with all sorts of questions about specific deposits and other stuff, especially if you are self-employed and have a variable income.

This may happen a couple times, until the underwriter lets you know that he has no more questions.

And then that underwriter will make a decision, but first he will send your stuff to another underwriter cause they need to agree on whatever decision they make.

And then you get the phone call with the final verdict.

If you are denied a modification, you probably still have some time before they seriously drop the hammer on you.

We have gone through this process twice already. And both times we were denied a modification.

We are now on our third attempt. Our situation has finally changed enough that this time I’m hoping they feel we have our shit together and are making enough money to make our payments.

We are.

But it’s not up to us. And this is our last shot at the modification route.

So on Thursday as I was driving up to Zones, Tyrone and the underwriter called me with their final questions.

I think all my answers were the answers they were looking for.

I hope they were.

Tyrone and the underwriter let me know that they should have their decision made by the end of next week at the latest.

I had a good feeling when I hung up the phone.

But you never know.

So if you could all put your strongest your application for a loan modification has been approved vibes out there, I’d really appreciate it.

And as soon as we have our answer, I’ll let you all know.

Hopefully in a couple days, we will all be celebrating.

Back at Number 1! Thank you!

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