With loan modifications all over the news and our government “pressuring” lenders to find a solution, I would have expected more from the biggest mortgage whore in the free world, Countrywide.

A client of ours was facing foreclosure. Countrywide is their mortgage servicer. Our client called for a loan modification and what they experienced was laughable.

My wife Kim and I offered to step in and assist our client simply because they felt they were confused and overwhelmed by the process. After submitting an “Authorization to Release” the adventure began.

First off the “Modification Specialist” was about as sharp as a bowling ball. After her diligent review and calculations, she was able to come up with a fixed interest rate of 6.5% while increasing their mortgage by an additional $26,000.00 of debt (the past due interest.) Their payment went from $2500.00 per month to $3200.00 per month?

I explained to the “specialist” that the new payment was not going to work…for what I thought to be obvious reasons. They are delinquent with $2500 per month payments, isn’t it likely that with an increased monthly payment, they will be back in the same dilemma in the next month or so?

According to the “specialist” she reviewed our client’s current finances and this is what they could afford. I challenged her every way but loose…nothing intelligent came out of her mouth. I begged to speak to her supervisor and I was met with “well he is the one that helped me find this solution.” Supervisor or “stupidvisor?”

Another funny thing, prior to speaking with the “specialist” Countrywide’s automated system (robot voice) shared the specifics of our clients modification…well, the automated voice announced that our clients had until September 3rd to endorse their current modification that was on the table. September 3rd was 10 days after the trustee sale scheduled for our client’s property?

Looking back on the process, our clients weren’t confused or too emotionally attached; they just couldn’t believe what they were hearing. The writing was clear…there is no “loan modification” happening at Countrywierd, just heavily sedated monkeys with special titles answering calls and wasting time.

I don’t think this is what our elected officials had expected when they enacted all these home saving bills.

Our clients are now short selling this property for about $200,000.00 less than what is owed due to depreciation in our market. Monkees!

Know go sell it!

Kris