The economy is going through a rough time and lots of people have lost their jobs or seen a reduction in their earnings. This has made mortgage payments unaffordable to a huge number of homeowners. The problem is that soon after your fall behind on your mortgage repayments, the lender may choose to initiate foreclosure proceedings, which means your house could be auctioned off to cover your dues. However, before all that happens, you need to try to negotiate with your mortgage lender to see if you can get a modification in the terms of your loan.

What is mortgage modification?

Mortgage modification is a change in the terms of your loan. It is usually carried out when you are having difficulty managing repayments based on the current terms, but sometimes borrowers also opt for modification to get rid of the loan earlier. Here are a few ways in which a loan can modified:

– Increase or decrease in the term of the loan
– Change of interest rate from fixed to variable or vice versa
– Change in principal amount
– Waiving off penalties

Why would the lender agree to modification?

What many homeowners are not aware of is that a foreclosure is not a great situation for a mortgage lender. It is an expensive exercise and the lender also loses out on the earnings that he would have got if you continued to pay interest on the loan in future. To avoid this situation, most lenders agree to make some adjustments to keep the loan regular as long as they are convinced that there is a good enough reason to give that concession to the borrower.

How to negotiate?

Although lenders are usually ready to listen to requests for modification, it doesn’t mean that you can just walk in asking for concessions, without having a solid case for it. The lender needs to be convinced that you are truly in financial difficulty and if the modifications are not made, the loan might end up in foreclosure. You need to carry any evidence that you may have about your financial difficulties to show that you are unable to afford repayments on current terms.

However, you also need to show that your situation will improve in some time. For example, if you’ve lost your job, you need to convince the mortgage lender that you will soon find a new one. If the lender feels that your financial difficulties are permanent then they would not bother to get into modification as they would feel that the loan would end up in foreclosure anyway.

You need to be forthcoming and honest with the mortgage lender. Any evidence that you provide should be true. The last thing you want is lying to them about your situation, which if they found out, there is no way they would be willing to offer you a modification. It might also be helpful to use a mortgage broker to help you through the negotiating process.

Author Bio: For more information on home equity loans or to talk to mortgage brokers in Canada, contact Canadian Mortgages Inc.

Category: Finances
Keywords: mortgage broker, mortgage loan, home loan, mortgage lender