Short Sale Stage II Negotiator

Stage II negotiators review paperwork in the short sale process.

If you find yourself in financial hardship and facing a foreclosure, you may request that the lender carry out a short sale instead. With a short sale, you sell your home to a buyer for less than your outstanding balance. To get your lender's approval for short sale, you have to go through several stages.

Stages

The short sale approval process occurs in three stages. In the first stage, you deal with a negotiator who works for the lender and handles your initial paperwork. You may have to submit various documents, including a hardship letter, bank statements and pay stubs. After the Stage I negotiator approves your application, the Stage II negotiator reviews all your file and passes it to the Stage III negotiator. In the third stage, the negotiator issues an approval if everything goes well.

Role

The Stage II negotiator has to review your paperwork and determine whether the lender needs more documents from you. Stage I may have taken months and the lender may need current data. As such, you may have to submit more documents, such as new financial statements and pay stubs. You may also have to sign some papers. The stage II negotiator then goes over your updated information and makes his decision based on your file.

Decision

The stage II negotiator can either approve, deny or counter your file. If she approves your application, she then passes your file to the Stage III negotiator for approval. With a counter, the lender requests a different sale price for the property or different terms of transaction. You can assess the lender's requested value and either dispute it or get the prospective buyer to increase his offer. If the Stage II negotiator denies your short sale application, then you may face a foreclosure.

Tips

In busy times, lenders may deal with hundreds of short sale application files at any one time. To make the process finish faster, the Kansas City Star newspaper recommends helping the negotiators do his job. Prepare a complete file to minimize the amount of extra paperwork the lender requests. Depending on your case, the complete file may consist of 200 to more than 400 pages. Send the file by certified mail and request a delivery confirmation. Don't send it by fax because the sheer size of the file may overwhelm the machine.

References

• Smith Avenue Assets: A Step by Step Guide to the Short Sale Process
• Distressed Property Experts; Bank of America Formerly Countrywide Short Sale Process Streamlined?; Craig Baranowski; June 2009
• Shorewest Realtors Suburbs of Greater Milwaukee; What is a Short Sale?; Colleen Kuchta; April 2011
• "Kansas City Star"; Q&A: How to Survive a Short Sale; Jim Buchta; June 2011