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Regardless of where you are at financially, it is almost never too late to avoid losing your home to foreclosure.  Qualified loan modification attorneys know that while it is easy to lose hope and fall into a place of inaction, you have many tools at your disposal.

Options

Contact your existing lender and see if you can get a forbearance, a payment plan or a deed in lieu of foreclosure.  A forbearance is an agreement between the lender and the borrower that reinstates the delinquent loan through the payment of a lump sum or a schedule of payments over a period of time.  A payment plan is similar to forbearance; in some cases, the lender may agree to a short term payment plan if you can prove you’ve had a hardship (loss of a job, medical bills, etc.).  A deed in lieu of foreclosure is a voluntary transference of title to the lender.  Most often, this is used as a last ditch effort by the homeowner to avoid the negative consequences of foreclosure.

The problem with all of these options is that they require a great deal of cash on hand, something you most likely do not have available.  Foreclosures can be a challenging situation because most people facing foreclosure are not simply lazy people who forgot to pay a bill, they are hardworking people who are facing some sort of financial crisis. These might be options if you have $10,000 or $20,000 on hand, but odds are you do not.  With a deed in lieu of foreclosure, the ultimate problem is you no longer own the home, and so now you’ve lost any equity in the house and you are not in control

Other options include refinancing, although that depends upon your credit history which could have taken a massive hit from your financial problems.  If you do not have an outstanding credit history, or if your financial challenges are more than short term, a refinancing probably will not happen.  A short sale is an option, although there is no guarantee that the lender will forgive whatever debt remains from the short sale.  There is also always bankruptcy, but there are so many challenges before, during and after a bankruptcy that it can be a complete waste of time.  A bankruptcy will stay on your credit history for up to a decade and provide nothing but headaches during that time.  Even afterwards you can face financial challenges, career challenges and legal challenges stemming from the bankruptcy.

Quite possibly your best option when facing foreclosure is a California loan modification.  A loan modification is a change of the terms of the original mortgage loan; the change could be to the interest rate, the length of the mortgage, the principal balance, the late fees or some other part of the original agreement.  To get a loan modification, you can attempt to deal with the lender yourself or hire a California loan modification attorney to negotiate on your behalf.  A loan modification attorney will often get a quicker response from a lender because he or she will have the law on their side.  A lender will consider a loan modification when foreclosure is eminent and the borrower’s income has been decreased, but if the borrower will be able to keep paying the mortgage at a lower monthly rate.