How to Request Help With a Foreclosure

Act early for help with a foreclosure. Your options for maintaining ownership of your house obviously expire once the foreclosure becomes official. Before then, you should seek help from government-certified experts on foreclosure prevention. Nonprofit housing counselors know about virtually every solution for avoiding foreclosure. For example, they can telephone your lender with you on the line as they ask for a delay in the foreclosure proceedings. That can give you and the housing counselor time to create a strategy for bringing your account current.

Instructions

1

Call the Homeownership Preservation Foundation Hotline at 888-995-4673. The foundation maintains the foreclosure avoidance hotline 24 hours a day and has provided advice to more than 500,000 homeowners since 2002, according to the foundation's website. The foundation has working relationships with lenders and housing counselors around the country.

2

Describe details of your foreclosure situation to the trained counselor answering the hotline. Tell the counselor about details of your mortgage delinquency and deadlines your lender has issued.

3

Follow the counselor's advice. The counselor may immediately call your lender with you on the line, or refer you to a counselor in your city for a face-to-face meeting to discuss your options.

4

Study the foreclosure-stopping options both counselors present. One option is a loan modification program, which allows the lender to rewrite your loan to bring the payments current and make the monthly payments affordable. Another is forbearance, when the lender suspends foreclosure proceedings while you gather money needed to bring your account current. A third option is repayment, which halts the foreclosure proceedings while you make up for missed payments by paying a little extra each month.

5

Stay in close contact with your housing counselor while responding to requests from your lender.