Regional Housing Legal Services representative Donald Marritz is disappointed to announce that only one of four troubled homeowners apply for financial aid. These may mean that either these homeowners just do not care about their homes, or they just do not know what to do to prevent foreclosure.
If you are one of those homeowners who want to save their homes and prevent foreclosure, you must know the typical process of foreclosure:
- Foreclosure is not stated upon delayed payment. The borrower usually has to miss two payments before the lender can move forward with a foreclosure case.
- But the lender must first send a notice called Act 91. This notice informs the borrower that the lender can not file a foreclosure case if they meet up with a housing counselor for 30 days up to 4 months.
- Take note that if a troubled homeowner who shows willingness to prevent foreclosure by meeting a housing counselor, their mortgage company could not touch them.
Pennsylvania’s Regional Housing Legal Services gives technical and legal assistance to needy families and homeowners. The Homeowners’ Emergency Mortgage Assistance Program also helps prevent foreclosures, but have some qualifications like: the borrower must have faced an uncontrollable circumstance, like job loss or illness, which led to the delinquency.
Those eligible homeowners are given 24 to 36 moths before resuming mortgage payments. A granted application means a loan from the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency that will be used to update mortgage payments.
HEMAP application has increase as more foreclosures arise. Only 3,875 homeowners applied for emergency mortgage aid in April 2008. But just this April, there are 4,990 applications.
In Montgomery, April 2008 application is at 223 only, this year it reached 347. And just last month assistance application is up at 435.
Marritz is puzzled why only a few of the many troubled families try to prevent foreclosure. Montgomery County has 15 to 20 percent of their problematic homeowners had asked for help in preventing foreclosure. Then only Huntington, Indiana, Monroe, Potter and Tioga are the counties that have 25 percent of their distressed population applies for financial assistance.