Loan Safe & Moe Bedard in the New York Times By Gretchen Morgenson
DAN A. BAILEY JR. was desperate when he sat down on May 19 to send an e-mail message to his mortgage lender, the Countrywide Financial Corporation, pleading, yet again, for help.
Behind on his payments and fearful of losing his home of 16 years — a 900-square-foot bungalow in Wilmington, N.C. — Mr. Bailey had spent the previous six months unsuccessfully lobbying Countrywide, at the time the nation’s largest home lender and loan servicer.
Mr. Bailey, 41, promised in his e-mail message that he would pay every nickel he owed if Countrywide would modify his mortgage in a way that allowed him to keep his home. He sent the message to a grab bag of Countrywide e-mail addresses, which he had received from www.LoanSafe.org, an online forum for borrowers.
Among the recipients of his e-mail was someone he had never heard of before: Angelo R. Mozilo, Countrywide’s co-founder and chief executive. Lo and behold, Mr. Mozilo replied — inadvertently, as it turned out.
“This is unbelievable,” Mr. Mozilo said in his message. “Most of these letters now have the same wording. Obviously they are being counseled by some other person or by the Internet. Disgusting.”
Within days, Mr. Mozilo’s e-mail was widely circulated on the Internet and in the news media, offering a rare instance when candid comments from a powerful C.E.O. entered the public realm. For Mr. Bailey, however, the disdain that Mr. Mozilo expressed was depressingly familiar.
After all, Mr. Bailey had received little else from Countrywide after he began trying to renegotiate an adjustable-rate loan that he could no longer afford. Until then, he says, the only guidance the lender provided was a suggestion from an employee of Countrywide’s “home retention team” that he cut back on groceries to pay his mortgage.
“I told her that I probably spend $10 a day on groceries,” Mr. Bailey recalls. “And she said ‘Maybe you can eat less.’ ”
As record numbers of homeowners try to avoid foreclosure, the responses of big lenders and loan servicers like Countrywide are drawing increased scrutiny. While these companies maintain that they’re doing all they can to help imperiled borrowers, critics contend that homeowners routinely meet roadblocks.
Read More of Loan Safe Solutions, LoanSafe.org, Moe Bedard & Daniel Bailey in the NY Times
Silence of the Lenders: Is Anyone Listening?
Dan A. Bailey Jr. at his Wilmington, N.C., home. His struggle with Countrywide ended up on the Internet, an embarrassing episode for the lender.
Moe Bedard is president of Loan Safe Solutions. He said his firm found problems in at least 80 percent of 300 mortgages it examined for clients.
News you may be able to use
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
I am not late yet on any mortgage payments. Should I start trying to get loan modifications now or do I need to wait until I am monthes behind on payments to get started? I am in the middle of a divorce and recently laid off due to an industry strike (actors). I have several mortgages in joint custody with the wife i am divorcing. she recently lost her job as well. We are also in the area directly affected by Katrina. We were both in real estate after the storm. We were living on our equity in the properties to sustain ourselves waiting for the market to change meanwhile going deeper in debt. We both took jobs in other fields after we seperated. I am about out of resources and going to be late in the next cycle of payments unless something gives quickly.
Thanks, Robow
Robow,
I have been trying to get a loan mod since March with IndyMac. I have not missed a single payment but was notified that in December my payment would triple. So, now here I am only months away from total disaster (there is no way I can afford a tripled payment!) and I still have not gotten anyone to talk to me except to say ‘ok, we will get back to you as soon as we can’. And NOW with the fiasco that just happened, I can’t get anyone to answer the phone at all. I am trying my best to be proactive and be a good customer but they won’t help me. Don’t wait, start the process NOW! It will take forever to get anyone to help you. All the while, they have not even told me IF they are going to be ABLE to help me… Good luck. We all need it.
HeyTriciaC
Robow,
You do not have to be several months late to get help with a loan modification, you just need to show you are having a true hardship, which in your case you are.
Please check out http://www.LOANSAFE.org
you will not only find that you are not alone in this, but also find the guidance and help to save your home
GOOD LUCK !
My goal is to get my first home in 2010. What advice can you give? What is a loan company -lender-I can trust?