Not only is it important to talk with a divorce attorney but you will also want to speak with a mortgage professional if you and your spouse own a home together.

If you choose to keep you home you will want to know how to go about refinancing the mortgage and the best route depending on whether you need to take cash out of the property or just remove the spouses name from the loan. 

Many do not know that you can get a name delete assumption.  A name delete assumption is getting someone else’s name removed from the mortgage and keeping the same loan.  It is much less expensive then your traditional refinance.  You will want to call your mortgage servicer and ask for the assumption department.  Every bank is different so the costs will vary.  I believe Wells Fargo charges $500 but if you have an interest rate of 5% and rates are now at 6% you will want to keep that low interest rate. 

The article below has a lot of great information. 

http://mortgageminute.mortgage-market-news.com/2009/11/12/divorce-mortgage-–-essential-things-you-need-to-know-about-your-house/

As always, here is your monthly Mortgage Servicer Performance Report through October 2009 from the Treasury Dept.

The pretty graphs show that housing inventory is increasing while mortgage rates, home prices and home sales are all dropping. 

PHH Mortgage is still not listed as a participant in this program.  According to some, PHH Mortgage is one of the tenth largest mortgage servicers.  Why aren’t they participating? If they are, why aren’t they visible on this report? 

See the report here

1 in 4 UNDERWATER, You probably heard this yesterday, I sure heard it and read it in many places.  Roughly 23% of American Homeowners owe more than their house is worth¹ and good luck refinancing, modifying or selling that bottomless pit.  “40% of borrowers who took out a loan in 2006 are underwater and 11% of borrowers who took out a loan in 2009 are underwater¹.”  

This is a very sad and sorry state in our current homeownership world.  I can honestly say that I am not surprised.  My own home was underwater and impossible to sell and a foreclosure resulted from that.  We should expect to see another wave of foreclosure statistics just dedicated to those attributed to homes underwater.  What more is there to say on the subject?  How bad does this situation have to get before someone will do something? 

Treasury still doesn’t get it, Over the summer I wrote a lot of letters on a variety of subjects pertaining to our foreclosure crisis.  I finally got a generic letter in reply late last week.  You all have read the petition letters and I even posted one letter to Geithner on this blog.  You all know that I write about specifics (I hope you do!).  This letter is so generic and not even worth the paper it was printed on.  They didn’t even reply to any of my concerns.  The Treasury just doesn’t get it.  With our elected and government officials passing off generic form letters for replies to concerned citizens, will we ever get anything done to regulate mortgage servicers?  See the letter here

Calling the FBI, I have received some comments about people calling the FBI regarding their mortgage servicer, PHH Mortgage.  I say, Go For It!  So, all of you, think about your situation and if you think the FBI might be interested, well why don’t you call too!  I thought about my situation and I don’t think the FBI would care if PHH refused short sale offers for my house.  I could be wrong……

Sources:
1. One in Four Borrowers is Underwater. Ruth Simon and James R. Hagerty. The Wall Street Journal. 11/24/09.
URL: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125903489722661849.html?mod=rss_whats_news_us&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+wsj%2Fxml%2Frss%2F3_7011+(WSJ.com%3A+What%27s+News+US)&utm_content=Google+Reader

Note, As a result of The National Consumer Expo, I am excited to add a new link to this blog!  Please check out the Alabama Consumer Law Blog.  The blog contains incredibly useful articles related to our fight against mortgage servicers.  I plan to learn from the blog!

A formal presentation packet was submitted. 

Click to read my letter to Oprah from June 2009 

A Daughter’s Plea for Help of a Needed Mortgage Crisis Intervention.
Time is running out!

A mother and daughter working nonstop for the last seven months to get help from a leading mortgage servicer for a solution of a troubled mortgage only to get nowhere. The bank is unwilling and uncooperative to assist this 86 year old senior citizen of Pasadena CA from losing her home to foreclosure. A home that has been in the family for 83 years. We wanted to expose the truth on your show of what seniors are faced with today. This is a wide spread issue not only locally but nationally. A formal presentation packet was submitted. 

A Daughter’s Plea for Help of a Needed Mortgage Crisis Intervention.
Time is running out!

A mother and daughter working nonstop for the last seven months to get help from a leading mortgage servicer for a solution of a troubled mortgage only to get nowhere. The bank is unwilling and uncooperative to assist this 86 year old senior citizen of Pasadena CA from losing her home to foreclosure. A home that has been in the family for 83 years. We wanted to expose the truth on your show of what seniors are faced with today. This is a wide spread issue not only locally but nationally. A formal presentation packet was submitted.