Question: I was laid off from my work last June because the state of the economy. As a result, we have been behind on our mortgage. A Notice of Trustee Sale last mailed to us last December. Fortunately, we applied for loan modification program under the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP). We were able to get a trial plan for 90 days. Meantime, my wife was forced to work two jobs to make both ends meet and still afford to pay the repayment plan.
We have been religiously paying for the lender under the agreement. On our fourth month of payment, we don’t know if we should still be paying for the same amount. Hence, I called our agent who told us to continue making the payment. In the confusion, there has been a delay of a few days from the deadline.
When we received an eviction notice last weekend! We only have five days to answer the eviction. We called up our agent and they knew nothing about it. This is so unfair! We depleted our savings trying to save this house and scrape off to be able to pay for our mortgage. My wife works double jobs so that we will be able to keep our house. We have credit card debt of $120,000. Lately, we had been not been paying our credit card bills in order to save this house. Thus, we have been receiving harassing phone calls on our cellphones, at home and even at our place of work. Do we just walk away? Can the bank turn around and sell our house under our feet?
Last week, we found out that Bank of America will put up our house for trustee sale on next Wednesday! We do not want to lose our house. Is there still any hope to keep our house?
Answer: Your situation is urgent. However, there are still legal steps you can do to save your house. Your best option will be to file a temporary restraining order (TRO) with the state court to enjoin foreclosure. The bank should not foreclosed on the property because there is a pending loan modification program. However, lately there are a lot of instances where the bank had foreclosed on a client’s house while they are still under loan modification or worse paying under a trial plan. In most of these cases, the bank has separate departments dealing with foreclosure and loss mitigation. In other cases, the bank deals with loan modification. However, there is another entity, a trustee, e.g., Quality Loan Service, NDex West, etc., who is in charge of the foreclosure proceedings. Some loan modification companies are just concern with obtaining a successful loan modification agreement. However, they fail to ensure that the house will not be foreclosed in the interim.
Another option is to file for bankruptcy. Bankruptcy laws affords debtors (the person who filed for bankruptcy) a reprieve from certain creditor actions, including eviction, foreclosures, garnishment, bank levy and repossessions. This means that the lender cannot go forward with these actions unless they ask the bankruptcy court’s permission. Once you file for bankruptcy, creditors are not supposed to call or communicate with you in any form. Hence, all the harassing phone calls will end. You can also discharge all your credit card debts under the bankruptcy.
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If you have any loan from countrywide or any of its affiliates, please call our office at 213-639-3888 or e-mail us at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . Our office is located at 3699 Wilshire Boulevard, Suite 720, Los Angeles, California 90010.
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This article does not constitute any legal guarantee or advice for any individual matters and does not create attorney client relationship with the readership.
( Published February 20, 2010 in Asian Journal Los Angeles p. C2 )
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