Countrywide Home Retention Program

15 years ago

Our neighbor has had their home foreclosed on by Countrywide. They moved out last December. Yesterday a Fed Ex guy delivered a package to the empty house. Luckliy

he delivered it to the wrong house. It would have laid there for who knows how long. It was delivered to a neighbor. He brought it to me because he knew we were in contact with them. I called her and she came out today.. Countrywide has a new program.. They offered the home back to them under these terms. Catch up on what is owed ( $22,626 ) by January first. Payments would be $1,224.00 a month. Then they would base the loan on 6,375 for 5 years and then raise it to 8,625 on a 30 year loan. This is over $400.00 more then what they were paying before. The couple tried to get them to do this months ago. Now being so far behind they have no way of doing this. So here we go, the house sits empty and probably will all winter.. Sadly, it is a nice house and it would make a family a wonderful home.

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FatHen
15 years ago
So far no regulatory agency has done more than 'suggest' lenders rework loans, so most aren't doing it, or aren't doing it in time. Sometimes buyers don't even ascertain for sure who owns the loan in time. Bof A bought Countrywide and though there have been some loans worked out and some lawsuits, etc, many others are left wondering how to get thru to this company (or other lender). In the meantime many lose their houses.

Many feel no sympathy toward buyers and see them all as people who got in over their heads and deserve to lose their house. However, the real estate and mortgage industries were engaged in a great deal of predatory and outright illegal lending practices over the last few years, facts borne out in reports from the FBI, and findings from lawyers who deal in loan fraud, former employee whistleblowers, etc. Not all buyers were deadbeats, and many buyers were flippers who walked away from a loan on a house that was no longer an investment but a liability. A person trying to get a bad loan reworked has a lot of hard work and reserach to do, to figure out how best to represent themselves. Sadly most in this situation cannot afford real legal help, if they could find a lawyer who knew what to do and was interested.

Countrywide has been in the news as one of the worst lenders, doing quite a bit of funky lending. They also had a significant relationship with homebuilders who steered buyers into toxic loans w/them. After being investigated and fined by the govt for their lending violations, KB Home and Beazer both shut down their in-house mortgage co's and sent their buyers to Countrywide. Tales of continued predatory lending have continued.

A lot of houses are going to go vacant, deteriorate and attract criminals and vandals. Had the industry not gone mad, and the public not misplaced its trust, we would not be in this mess. IMO this industry can't be trusted to ever regulate itself again. I'm not in favor of big govt but clearly this whole catastrophe was preventable if the crimes had been nipped in the bud instead of encouraged by the govt looking the other way, and even encouraging homeownership at any price.
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Countrywide Home Retention Program

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FatHen

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