Know Your Rights

Have no illu­sions.  Banks are in busi­ness to make money and you can expect all of their deci­sions to be made toward that end.  They can and will go after your money, even when they know you don’t have it.  The tac­tics that lenders often use might sur­prise you and most lenders will go out of their way to con­vince you to deal with them directly in order to pre­clude their hav­ing to deal with a mort­gage mit­i­ga­tion attor­ney.  How­ever, even in the fore­clo­sure process, you still have your rights and you should not let your bank ignore them.  Each state has its own laws, and a home­owner always has rights dur­ing a fore­clo­sure.  This is why hav­ing a mort­gage mit­i­ga­tion attor­ney rep­re­sent you in these types of nego­ti­a­tions is crucial.

You should begin your research by review­ing your own mort­gage con­tract.  Most peo­ple just scan the papers and sign them.  Bro­kers want to close the deal right away, so they often do not take the time to explain it to you.  If you are fac­ing fore­clo­sure or sim­ply hav­ing dif­fi­cul­ties with your mort­gage, now is the best time to dig out your con­tract and read it thor­oughly.  This is one of the first things a good mort­gage mit­i­ga­tion attor­ney will do when han­dling your case.  The fol­low­ing is a list of some of your basic rights:

Cure the Delin­quency:

All mort­gages give you the right to resolve defaults before the fore­clo­sure starts, and even while the process is under way.

Be informed:

All bor­row­ers must be kept up to date on the fore­clo­sure process as it hap­pens, even if you do not actu­ally take part in the process. The lender and their staff can carry on with­out you, but you are offi­cially one of the par­ties concerned.

Loan Mod­i­fi­ca­tion:

All bor­row­ers are given the right to mod­ify the exist­ing terms of the loan.  How­ever, not all home­own­ers know how to get the best results.  Leave it up to our legal staff to nego­ti­ate aggres­sively on your behalf to get you the results you need to stay in your home.

Lenders and their lawyers are well aware of your rights, but their goal is to get what they can out of you; even if it means vio­lat­ing your rights.  You should never lose sight of the fact that lenders are not inter­ested in help­ing you unless it makes finan­cial sense for them to do so.  Accord­ingly, you should expect your lender to attempt to nego­ti­ate terms to their advan­tage and that means tak­ing advan­tage of you!

A good loan mit­i­ga­tion attor­ney can pro­tect your rights and inter­ests and has a vested inter­est in ben­e­fit­ting from solv­ing your mort­gage trou­bles.  A good loan mod­i­fi­ca­tion attor­ney also has noth­ing to gain from your losses.

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