How to Stop Foreclosure With Citimortgage

Contributor
By Shelley Moore
eHow Contributing Writer

Citimortgage is a company that is willing to work with its mortgage customers to help them stay in their homes. This requires some diligence on your part, but this company does work with you to avoid foreclosure.

Difficulty: Challenging
Instructions
Things You'll Need:
Income statement

Step 1
Know that Citimortgage, like other lenders, does not want to foreclose on property and will go to some lengths to avoid doing so. Foreclosing on property is expensive for the company, because the home equity and future sale price may not even cover the loan balance along with unpaid interest and legal expenses. Also, foreclosed homes tend to be more difficult to sell for a good price. Often the house is in need of repair since the owner has been so short on cash, and prospective buyers know the mortgage company basically wants to unload the property in a hurry at auction rather than be stuck with trying to sell it for months on end.

Step 2
Ask about the “Workable Solutions” package, which Citimortgage's Loss Mitigation department will automatically send if you fall behind for 60 days. The paperwork asks for the reasons you have been unable to keep up with your payment schedule and for a solution as to how you will make up the "arrearage" (missed payments). One possibility is spreading out the back payments over a certain number of future payments, or you can spread out the amount over the balance of the loan. Both these options will raise your mortgage payments, at least for awhile. You must be certain you can make these payments once you agree to them. You can also request a "forbearance," where Citimortgage suspends the payments for a short time until you are able to make them again. This is similar to the previous option, except you have a bit more breathing room to catch up financially before beginning to make payments again. Other possibilities are to have the loan modified at a lower interest rate, or to extend it for 1 year. These options are less likely to meet with approval because mortgage companies dislike modifying original loan terms. You also can ask to apply for refinancing, although Citimortgage will be hesitant to approve this if you are behind on payments.

Step 3
Return your Workable Solutions paperwork, and Citimortage will assign a Loss Mitigation representative to your case. It is very important to stay in contact with this representative and avoid calling the Collections or Foreclosure departments. Talking to agents in these departments will only result in more demands for immediate payment. Representatives tend to be swamped with Workable Solutions cases, so they may be hard to reach, especially during rough economic times. Don’t be discouraged or frightened about impending foreclosure if you have trouble actually reaching your representative on the phone. Continue to leave a message on a regular basis, perhaps every 2 weeks, and also send a letter to Citimortgage if more than 60 days pass since you sent in the paperwork. State your continued intent to become current with your payments.

Step 4
Expect approval if your request is reasonable and you have backed it up with evidence that you can make the future payments. If your request is not approved, and you have not been able to come up with the back payments, consider selling your house as quickly as possible to avoid foreclosure. If you are set on staying in your home, contact an attorney about filing for Chapter 13 bankruptcy protection. A Chapter 13 filing immediately stops the foreclosure process and allows you to spread the back payments out over the current payments for 3 years.

Tips & Warnings
Avoid being confrontational when you speak to your Citimortgage representative; keep your communication calm and personable, but firm and assertive. It is in everyone's best interests for you and the company to come to a mutually agreeable solution, and your representative will do whatever he can to make sure this happens.
Bankruptcy should be considered only as a last resort when there really are no other options available. It is a stressful and difficult episode to go through, and also has a significant long-term negative impact on your credit rating, making it tough to buy property in the future, rent a home or receive any unsecured credit.
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vpo149 said

Flag This Comment This comment has been flagged.
on 11/5/2009 After contacting them for help and submitting everything. You HAVE to call them EVERYDAY and pressure them to work out something. Don't just wait and expect to be contacted by them. They will NOT call you. My house was days from being auctioned off because it took them a month to do something. Then the payments they set for me were outrageously high but I had no choice due to the time. I had to end up filing a chapter 13. I wasnt happy with their services at all.


fukdbycitimort said

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on 10/17/2009 Citimortgage isn't any different than any other. They will purposely make sure that you have to make large sum payments to ensure the unlikeliness of you ever being able to make them or even catch up! They are CROOKS Just like EVERY Other Blood Sucking Greedy BANK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


omommia said

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on 5/16/2009 blah blah blah


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Revoltin1
If there is a certain amount of equity in your home, the bank$ters would rather foreclose so the equity will be theirs. IF they do work with people to stay in their homes at all, it is the ones who owe much more than their properties are worth, and even then, the bank$ters arent very customer friendly....watch Michael Moores "Capitalism, a Love Affair," to see what $hitiBank thinks of us (Americans) you will also be suprized to know that banks (and other corporate employers) take out LIFE INSURANCE policies on some of their employess WITHOUT them even knowing....talk about "insider trading." Be sure and see the flick.






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