I know that the health care issue is sucking all the oxygen out of the room but I know that many, many people are in the same position I am in: under water on a mortgage they cannot afford.
I had a success recently in getting my mortgage modified and I wanted to share the process I went through over the 7 months of constant work it took me to obtain a loan modification.
Jump for the detail.
First, it took me 7 months. Not 7 months of 'submit an application and we will process it for you', but 7 months of constant phone calls. Constant meaning daily/weekly. My servicer even has what they call a 'secure email system' for delivering messages to them - if your bank offers this to you please do not use it. No one reads it. I got nothing but automated responses from this - utter waste of time. If you are trying to get your mortgage modified you must call your servicer/bank constantly. Squeeky wheel gets the most oil is an annoying phrase - but apt.
Second, every one of my calls were routed to a call center in India. The staff at the call center had two purposes - to take payments and tell me that my loan modification was 'under review'. That's it. Did you know that you can request to speak with a representative in the U.S. when you reach a foreign call center? I didn't - didn't know that until 2 months into the process. So now my calls went like this: (a) dial number and get automated response, (b) enter at least 4 types of verifying data, (c) be placed on hold, (d) get answered by call center, (e) re-verify same data to call center, (f) request to speak with US representative, (g) thank call center and no there is nothing you can help me with please connect me to US rep, (h) be placed on hold, (i) speak with US representative. I got tired just writing that out - takes about 10 minutes to reach a US rep for each call. Stake out at least 15 minutes for each call before you start - don't let the lengthy process get in your way -it exists solely to stop people from continuing.
Third, once I got to a US rep - then I was in US customer service department. I asked to speak with the person in charge of my file and got a name and, most importantly, an extension!! This was huge - now when I called the number I only had to go through (a) above and then could enter an extension number. And of course reach voicemail as my rep never answered the phone. Never. Called me back twice in 5 months. Missed her both times.
Fourth, if you cannot reach your rep directly, leave several messages over a few days, then go through the call tree again and ask US customer service for my reps manager. Then leave that manager a voicemail. Do that repeatedly until you get a response. If that does not work, repeat the process and speak to the managers manager - give them some time to respond (I usually waited between 24 and 48 hours) but stay on them.
Fifth, thankfully, mortgage notes and loan modifications are not foreign documents to me but not everyone has my experience. I received loan modification documents in the mail, without warning one day with a note that I had 5 days to sign them and send them back. No one ever discussed what the modification structure would be or how it would impact me. I reviewed the docs, signed them and sent them back. If you get to this stage, and you are not comfortable reviewing documents like this, get help - ask a friend, relative, neighbor, anyone. Signing these documents is as important as when you first signed your mortgage - make sure you understand what you are signing and how it will impact you. There is no point going through 7 months of work only to put yourself in a worse position.
My takeaway from this whole debacle is that while neither servicers or banks want to modify loans, if you put in the work you have the possibility of getting a successful result. That's it. View this as a job - depending upon your situation it might be the most important short-term job you ever have. When you finally reach a human being, be polite but forceful - they have a script to deal with you, get them off the script.
Oh, and I forgot one very important item - keep a record of your calls. Date, time, name of person and what you discussed. May sound overboard but it does create a nice record of what happened if your bank starts getting fishy on you.
I hope this is at least modestly helpful to someone. All banks are different and have different structures/call trees/annoyances - but stick with it.
Good luck!