Most people believe that foreclosure laws are designed to hurt rather than help them. Not so. The truth is, foreclosure laws have evolved to protect the borrower -not the lender. The foreclosure process gives you, the borrower, specific periods of time in which to:

• bring your loan current by making up the missed payments (known as “reinstatement”), or

• pay off your loan in its entirety (called “redemption”).

If neither of these options is feasible, you will still have time to prevent your property from being sold at a public auction (the foreclosure sale). You will get the most benefi t out of the foreclosure process if you envision it as a “window of opportunity” to resolve your financial problems. During this period, you have time to learn about the foreclosure process and implement a strategy to stop the foreclosure. Another basic misconception about foreclosure is that lenders want to foreclose.

Nothing could be further from the truth! Lenders are in the business of loaning money—not owning real estate. Lenders are also reluctant to incur the costs of a foreclosure. For example, if your lender is forced to foreclose, it will not only lose your back payments, but it will also incur foreclosure expenses, taxes, insurance, wear and tear while you (or your tenant) live in the property, rehabilitation expenses to refurbish the property for sale, and a real estate agent’s commission once the property is sold. As a result, many lenders will go out of their way to work out a resolution– short of actually foreclosing–if given the opportunity to avoid paying these costs.

Communicate With Your Lender

At the heart of stopping your foreclosure is communicating with your lender. Don’t shy away because you’ve missed payments, concerned that you will miss some payments in the future, or that your property has already gone into foreclosure. Whether you communicate by telephone, le_er, email, fax, or in person, you will have a much easier time stopping (or at the very least, delaying) the foreclosure if you talk to your lender rather than adopting a code of silence. The first step is to determine who your lender actually is. (This is no small feat these days with lenders selling their loans to other lenders like hot potatoes.)

If your property has already gone into foreclosure, the fi rst person you will be dealing with either the foreclosing trustee, or the attorney for the lender. The trustee is responsible for handling the foreclosure process if it is nonjudicial If it is a judicial foreclosure, you will most likely be contacted by a process server, sent by the lender’s attorney. But the problem is that you need to communicate with your lender, not the trustee or the attorney.

So you should request from the trustee or the a_orney, the name, telephone number, and address of the foreclosing lender. In the unlikely event that they refuse to disclose the name of your lender, you can look on the Notice of Default, or the summons and complaint, or telephone the customer service department of a local title insurance company. Another situation may occur where you discover the name of your lender, but it turns out to be a servicing agent rather than the party that actually holds the deed of trust or mortgage.

A servicing agent is a company (sometimes it can be a bank, mortgage company, or private corporation) that is hired by the actual lender to “service” the loan, including the collection of payments, issuing of payment coupons and late notices, monitoring the impounding of insurance and tax payments, and handling foreclosures if necessary. Fortunately, most servicing agents will disclose the name of the lender. If they won’t, you may be forced to negotiate with the servicing agent. In either event, follow the guidelines in this book to communicate and negotiate with them.

Do not under any circumstance ignore your lender’s contacts. Your goal should be to respond to every phone call or letter. Diffi cult as it may be to talk about your financial problems, be polite and cooperative. Follow up all telephone calls with a letter to the person you spoke to, confi rming what was said. If you’re not in when a call comes, return it as soon as you can. When you receive a le_ er from your lender (always keep the original), immediately write a letter in response. It is important to establish a paper trail so you can prove to your lender (or a court, if necessary) that you have been cooperative, especially during the initial stages of the foreclosure process. It is also important to send copies of all of your letters to:

• the lender’s CEO

• the branch manager (if applicable)

• the loan offi cer who helped you obtain your loan, and

• any other person you know by name at your lender’s office.

Financial problems are ones of the most difficult to solve. We cannot do away with them because there will be points of our lives when we need to ask somebody to lend us some amount: big or small. Inevitable situations like death of the breadwinner in a family, terrible sickness or any emergency for that matter and so many credit cards to pay for. These push someone to lend money.

You can lend money in the fastest way available now. With an advanced system of money lending today, you will really be tempt to give it a try. Borrow fast and pay slow or possibilities may not be favorable to you. Worst, you will have a hard time paying for them. This is where bankruptcy knocks on. Bankruptcy is fatal. Yes, it is a figurative way of telling how bankruptcy may bring the most negative effects to a person or to a home.

When one faces this so tough problem, the bankruptcy laws with a lawyer’s help may ease the burden. Your lawyer may give u good advice like talking to your creditor asking them to lower down a bit or ask them to give you more time to pay. Another option is to seek advice from a credit counseling service. Private or public, they will help you deal with this situation and may help you negotiate with your creditors. The last available option is debt consolidation.

US bankruptcy laws offer two options for bankruptcy. One can choose between liquidation plan and repayment plan. These have both advantages and disadvantages. Consider all the sides of the situation and choose what suits you best.

You start your move to survive against bankruptcy by bankruptcy proceedings. This is commenced by filing bankruptcy forms. One gives his or her personal information. This includes your list of assets and liabilities. A meeting with one’s creditors will happen after a month. In most cases, creditors do not show up. This meeting aims to ask and confirm what one has written on the form. An interrogation will let you answer questions regarding your assets and liabilities. One’s lawyer is always there to help him or her out.

Under the bankruptcy laws, its will protect you from the harassment of your creditors before the proceeding starts It means you will not experience all those pressing calls forcing you to pay as soon as the next day. Creditors are not allowed to contact you during unreasonable hours. In addition, creditors must not leak your situation in your workplace. It will just modify the way your work image to your boss. Moreover, creditors are asked to cancel any means of hurrying you up to pay. Another important point is that your current employer is not allowed to use your bankruptcy as a reason for firing you out of a company.

A trustee appointed by the court will work with you after you have filed your bankruptcy forms. In the liquidation proceeding and repayment option, the trustee portrays different roles. He has the role to sell your assets and the money acquired will be distributed among your creditors. That is his role on the former. On the latter, he has the role of collecting payments from you and he will distribute them to your creditors. He also takes control in approving any of your new credit obligations.

After the bankruptcy proceedings, the court will end your accountability to dischargeable debts. For a span of ten years, all your bankruptcy proceeding records will be noted. Within this span of time, this record will be considered by any agency or person you wish to transact business with. The proceeding and all is not for free but one will not pay too much. An amount for the forms is the only thing to pay for. For a repayment option, one needs to pay like 10% of the amount you paid for the creditors. Lawyer’s fee may soar but the result will send one to greater heights.

Bankruptcy is inevitable. It may be the test of fate. But do not even let it test you.

What do you think? Will this help?