Mortgage Loan Modifications Spike in September

The Home Affordable Mortgage Program has been widely criticized for the lackluster participation, but a new report has shown that mortgage modifications rose in September.

The U.S. Housing Authority reported on Thursday that HAMP has helped 40,141 homeowners received modifications, lowering their monthly mortgage payments in September, which is a significant jump from the 25,434 modifications in August, according to Reuters.

A foreclosure attorney can facilitate a mortgage modification for a homeowner if they meet certain criteria.

Part of the rise can be attributed to a change in servicing and clearing out a backlog of modification cases. As of September, servicers reported that there were 19,800 trial modifications that have been active for more than six months without a decision, according to Housing Wire. In May of 2010, 190,400 homes were awaiting decision.

The Treasury Department changed their guidelines for people applying for the HAMP program, such as requiring servicers to have all the proper documentation before applying for a modification and putting in place a second-review process to make certain all  decisions were properly made during the trial modification, according to Housing Wire.

Although, this just scratches the surface of the foreclosure crisis, there is some hope for troubled homeowners. The prospect of losing a home is extremely frightening and some of these people can challenge this by finding a highly-skilled foreclosure lawyer to represent them.

Avoiding foreclosure simply isn’t possible for everyone, but a homeowner won’t know if they can save their homes until they contact a foreclosure attorney to review their situation.