Illinois Governor Quinn’s Mortgage Relief Project will visit Chicago on April 9th, 2011 with foreclosure assistance

Offer­ing Chicago home­own­ers imme­di­ate assis­tance to avoid fore­clo­sures, Illi­nois Gov­er­nor Pat Quinn’s Mort­gage Relief Project will be mak­ing its next stop at the Arturo Velasquez Insti­tute in Chicago on Sat­ur­day, April 9, 2011.

The free work­shops will be held from 9 a.m.-1 p.m. on Sat­ur­day, April 9, 2011, at the Arturo Velasquez Insti­tute, 2800 S. West­ern Avenue, Chicago, Ill. Home­own­ers will receive help­ful advice about mort­gage refi­nanc­ing, fore­clo­sure pre­ven­tion, legal rights, credit coun­sel­ing, and iden­ti­fy­ing legit­i­mate assis­tance providers.  Home­own­ers can also obtain pri­vate, one-on-one hous­ing coun­sel­ing with HUD-certified coun­selors. These coun­selors can assist you with obtain­ing assis­tance from your lender.  Be sure to bring your lat­est mort­gage doc­u­ments (bills, state­ments, notices, etc.), two most recent paystubs, and your state ID or driver’s license. For an item­ized list of all the doc­u­ments that you would need to com­plete a full appli­ca­tion for a loan mod­i­fi­ca­tion, go to Mort­gage Relief Project Doc­u­ment Check­list.

Home­own­ers who have fallen behind on their mort­gage pay­ments can obtain a 90-day grace period by enter­ing hous­ing coun­sel­ing, accord­ing to the Home­owner Pro­tec­tion Act, which estab­lishes a grace period of up to 90 days on mort­gage fore­clo­sures for home­own­ers that enter hous­ing coun­sel­ing.  Home­own­ers are invited to take advan­tage of state and fed­eral pro­grams on-site at Mort­gage Relief Project out­reach events, admin­is­tered by the Illi­nois Depart­ment of Finan­cial and Pro­fes­sional Reg­u­la­tion and the Illi­nois Hous­ing Devel­op­ment Author­ity.   “By par­tic­i­pat­ing in this event, home­own­ers can lit­er­ally save their homes,” said Brent E. Adams, Sec­re­tary of Finan­cial and Pro­fes­sional Reg­u­la­tion. “The Mort­gage Relief Project pro­vides direct, tan­gi­ble, and free assis­tance to homeowners.” 

The Home­owner Pro­tec­tion Act . The law requires that all lenders and loan ser­vicers notify home­own­ers who are at least 30 days late on their mort­gage pay­ments that they have 30 days to seek hous­ing coun­sel­ing to get their loan back on track. If a home­owner enters hous­ing coun­sel­ing, they get an addi­tional 30-day grace period on fore­clo­sure in order to work out a pay­ment plan or refi­nance option.

For more infor­ma­tion on the Illi­nois Mort­gage relief Project, or to receive imme­di­ate assis­tance in advance of the April 9th event, please call IDFPR’s toll-free con­sumer hot­line (800) 532‑8785 dur­ing reg­u­lar busi­ness hours or visit www.idfpr.com or www.ihda.org. A list of HUD-approved hous­ing coun­sel­ing agen­cies in Illi­nois can be found at www.hud.gov.