Friday, August 19, 2016

What’s Your First Move after a Foreclosure Notice?

Receiving a notice that your home is going into foreclosure can be absolutely devastating. While debt is hard to move through, foreclosure makes you feel like you no longer have any moves to make. The good news is you’ve still got options after you receive a notice of foreclosure. So what is the most important advice I can give you after 15 years of experience? Don’t Wait.

I’m sure your next question is, “Don’t wait to do what?” Don’t wait to explore your options. There are often three avenues you can take when you are in foreclosure. First, you can choose to try and modify your loan with your mortgage company. This is often the first move for a lot of people. Unfortunately, this economy is causing loan modifications to be harder to obtain. In fact, America’s largest lender is only approving about 4% of the people who apply for the modification. And what happens to the other 96%? Well, they get a notification that there isn’t anything that can be done to help them. That notification may not come until weeks or days before a foreclosure date—and then you are left with little time to pick another option.

You can also look into debt settlement to try and free up some of your money and make your mortgage payments but, since so many have been turning to debt settlement, the amount of scams have been steadily rising. It also only offers to settle some of your debt. There are other options that can actually eliminate your debt and give you legal protection from your creditors.

The third option that is usually thought of in the event of a foreclosure is bankruptcy. Bankruptcy can actually stop a foreclosure immediately. In a study conducted earlier this year, it showed that over 20% of the people who filed for bankruptcy did so to save their home. It is most definitely the safest option out of the three. Not only will it stop your foreclosure but bankruptcy will also stop harassing creditor calls, wage garnishments, and car repossessions. No wonder the number of bankruptcy filings has hit an all time high this year.

Whatever option you choose, it is important not to wait. If you wait to decide what move you will make, it could leave you without enough time to let any option help you save your home.

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