How to Get Government Help to Avoid Home Foreclosure

There are numerous resources out there to help you save your home.

Many people dream of owning a home some day, but a foreclosure notice is a nightmare. Foreclosure happens when an owner's right to property is terminated. This is a legal process, and you do not want to go through it if you can help it. Fortunately, there is help out there to avoid home foreclosure, and it comes straight from the government.

Instructions

1. Use the search tool at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development: Foreclosure Avoidance Counseling to locate a counselor near you. President Obama's comprehensive home affordability and stability plan makes it possible for some homeowners to be eligible for a special Making Home Affordable loan modification or refinance. This program can help you decrease your payments so you can keep your home. A counseling agency will help you understand the different affordability plans.

2. Contact your lender. You need to know all of your options up front. Believe it or not, letting your lender know you are having trouble making payment won't put him in a rush to take your home away from you. In fact, according to HUD: Contact Your Lender to Avoid Foreclosure, the government makes it mandatory for lenders to work rigorously with borrowers so they can keep their homes. Before you get more than two payments behind, find out who your lender is by looking at your monthly mortgage billing statement.

3. Search for your state and local foreclosure resources. Each state offers help for borrowers. Go to U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development: Avoiding Foreclosure--Resources in Your State. Click on your state and find all kinds of help from mortgage finance agencies to legal assistance.

Tips & Warnings

• Because lenders are always creating new ways to help borrowers, it's OK to contact them for help even if they have turned you down in the past.

• Maintain residence at your home during the entire foreclosure prevention process. According to the Federal Trade Commission: Mortgage Payments Sending You Reeling? Here's What to Do, if you move out or rent your home to other people, you may be disqualified from some types of assistance.

• Keep track of all contact you have with your lender and other organizations. Track conversations and list outcomes. This way you have something to refer to if the foreclosure prevention process lasts longer than you expected.

• The later you contact your lender to tell him you are having trouble making payments, the fewer options you will have.

• Beware of places that ask you to pay for help. Foreclosure assistance should be free of charge. Don't give into any pressure to sign papers quickly and make payment directly to your mortgage company unless you have approval to do otherwise.

• Also, beware of counselors that guarantee a solution to stop foreclosure on your home. Counselors should not be making any guarantees because there are many factors involved.

References

• HUD: Contact Your Lender to Avoid Foreclosure
• Federal Trade Commision: Mortage Payments Sending You Reeling? Here's What To Do
• U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development: Foreclosure Avoidance Counseling
• U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development: Avoiding Foreclosure--Resources in Your State