Loan Modifications sponsored by Obama’s administration HAMP (Home Affordable Modification Program) program does not a have a very long history but Wachovia has lagged at the bottom of it from the very beginning.
Wachovia has over 82,000 borrowers with home loans, the economy is doing pretty bad which has caused a large percentage of those borrowers struggle to make their payments. However Wachovia has only provided loan modifications for 3% of their struggling borrowers, those 60 days or more behind their payments and that includes borrowers that are still fighting through a loan modification trial. To give you an idea of how many borrowers get through the trial loan modification to date over 750,000 loan modification trials have been filed but under 40,000 have qualified for permanent loan modifications.
Wachovia is not the only large lender and servicer that has poor a poor loan modification conversion but it 3% is bad even at the bottom of the loan modification conversion league.
The reasons for low conversion numbers are complex. Pointing fingers at servicers and banks is easy and the fact that some banks are doing much better than 3% shows that Wachovia and other servicers can do more, however there are many other factors. Loan Modifications do involve paperwork and depend on Net Present Value tests. Borrowers are not always as good at filling and filing paperwork as they would like and the sad truth is that many people don’t qualify for loan modifications under the current rules. For instance banks are only required to approve a loan modification if the Net Present Value test shows that it would be profitable for the bank to grant the loan modification instead of simply continuing with the foreclosure.
Are Wachovia Loan Modifications damaging your credit score?
Another issue with loan modifications is how they affect your credit rating. As most of the borrowers that qualify for loan modifications can a) afford a modified loan payment, b) have a mortgage that is not terribly “underwater” and c) the will and stamina to endure the painful ordeal of a loan modification it is likely they care about their credit rating after having their loan modification approved.
Various horror stories from the “lucky” 3% of Wachovia’s borrowers that qualified for a loan modification have mentioned how Wachovia guaranteed there would be no negative information reported to their credit file to later realize Wachovia had reported them as undergoing Paying Partial Payment Agreement which is actually way worse than being reported for a loan modification program under the current HAMP program.
It is possible that these cases are isolated to “private” agreements between the borrower and Wachovia without falling under the HAMP program, which does not approve of this kind of reporting. This does not change the fact that it is a straight lie and measures should be taken to stop this if it has become a matter of course with Wachovia. Borrowers can easily destroy their credit by becoming delinquent on their loan quite easily on their own without any servicers “help” in the form of a paying partial payment agreement.
It seems that one of the reasons for these complaints is that when Wachovia was bought out by Wells Fargo loan modification terms were changed and that included credit rating report procedures.
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