NEW RULES TO PROTECT AGAINST FORECLOSURE

NEW RULES TO PROTECT AGAINST FORECLOSURE: The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CPFB) has announced new rules that may help in avoiding foreclosure--or at least delaying it while you try to make some arrangements (refi, loan mod, etc.) to avoid the foreclosure. The title of this item is a bit misleading--if you don't pay your mortgage and are unable to get a loan mod, you WILL lose your home. However, the new rules can help. One is that lenders/servicers cannot commence foreclosure proceedings until at least 120 days after you miss a payment. In some states under traditional methods, a lender could file a notice of default, beginning the process, the day after you missed a payment. This new 120 day rule gives a homeowner more time to initiate and possibly complete some alternative plan to avoid foreclosure. Another rule requires lenders no longer follow a 'dual tracking' process. Under this process, even if you were seeking a loan mod from your lender, the foreclosure process ground on, often side by side with your loan mod app. You rarely had only a designated single person from the bank to talk to, and, consequently, the right hand never knew what the left was doing. Result? Foreclosure in many cases where you might have qualified for the mod, but for the foreclosure process going on. Yet another rule now requires that in cases where you've filed a loan application at least 37 days before a scheduled foreclosure sale date, the lender must give full consideration and decision to that app before continuing the foreclosure (this continuation would only then occur if your app was denied). Another rule requires that the lender or servicer provide you with written notice of your options once you have missed two payments, and also requires you be given acces to the person(s) responsible for updating the status of any loan app or mod app you may have in process. There area a number of other rules as well and the new rules do NOT apply to all lenders. Exempted form the rules are small lenders/servicers handling fewer than 5,000 loans. Want more details? Go Online: www.consumerfinance.gov, which is CFPB's web site. As always< Good Luck.