Modifications are available without a bankruptcy, but you have to show them that you have a legitimate need for bankruptcy. Sorry. You have to show them that you have a legitimate need for that modification, that something happened that wasn’t your fault, and that you will be able to make payments in the future. You just can’t get caught up on the missed payments from the past, the benefit of filing, doing a modification while you’re in a bankruptcy though, is that the court’s protective order in bankruptcy stops any pending foreclosures. So it makes the bank hold still and sit on their hands while you take care of the modification or whatever else needs to be done. When the bank is taking payments, your file is on one desk. When you fall behind and your loan goes into default, it moves over to another desk if it gets far enough in default that now we’re looking at foreclosure and moves to a third desk.
Well, at any point that you file for a modification, you have 30 days to get it done. And if you’re filed moves from desk one to desk or two, during that time, you have to start the whole process over because a new set of eyes has to look at that application and it has to approve it. And so if you are behind on your payments, it can be very difficult to have a modification approved because you not only have to meet the strict burden of documentation and justification for that model, that modification, but you have to do it while it’s sitting on one guy’s desk before it moves on to the next place in a bankruptcy, the court enters an order immediately when we file your case is called the automatic state automatically tells everyone to stay put, and your file stays on one desk and gives us the time that we need to get a modification completed.
And most mortgage companies see the fact that you’re in a bankruptcy as cost, as reason to file and approve a modification. And so we’re batting a thousand on those. Pretty much every single person that has had us help them with their modification has succeeded while in a bankruptcy. Some people that have handled it themselves have not, done real well with the paperwork, but when they come back to us and ask us to help them with it, every one of them has been approved and that allows them to be current right now, not have to pay extra now to get current, but just resume making the payments. And those payments are usually lower because we stretched out the payments on the balance and we’ve lowered the interest.
