The governments Making Home Affordable Program (HAMP) released in March last year was designed to help homeowners modify mortgages and stay in their homes. While qualifications for HAMP seem pretty straight forward, the governments program appears to be failing.
While many borrowers have applied for HAMP, a very small portion of them seem to be getting the mortgage relief they had hoped for ending up in foreclosure or hiring a bankruptcy attorney. If you can’t get a straight answer from your mortgage servicer or denied a loan modification without good reason you might want to consider alternate measures. Borrowers continue to complain about going round and round for months with no results, or stuck in a trial period with no permanent modification.
Bank of America is the third major lender over the past two weeks to freeze foreclosures in the 23 states where the foreclosure process is controlled by the courts. Bank of America went further than GMAC and J.P. Morgan Chase who have said they will amend paperwork only in cases they think were improperly done. So far, that's been a small handful of cases.