My husband is an Desert Storm vet. Our first mortgage is a VA Loan with Wells Fargo. My husband lost his job in May and was unable to obtain unemployment benefits. We applied for assistance from PA Housing shortly thereafter. During that time we were told by the emergency assistance counselor that Wells Fargo nor our second lien holder National City could not pursue foreclosure. National City continued to harass us which we took care of via the PA Atty General's office. We received a denial from PHEAA the beginning of November at which time my husband had obtained new employment. We contacted Wells Fargo first via certified mail and asked for assistance in modification and/or reformation. They turned us over to the foreclosure attorneys rather promptly without giving us the opportunity to try to work out any kind of an agreement with them. Currently we are 9 months behind and the best they can offer us is to come up with several thousand dollars within a short period of time, if approved they will tack on the arrears at the end of our term and we resume our regular monthly payments. My husband took a $15,000 - $20,000/yr paycut so we cannot afford the payments the way they are. We have contacted the VA who advised us that they only monitor that the lender follows procedure that they cannot help us otherwise. We have contacted our representatives as well. When they got back to me they advised that as soon as they mentioned Wells Fargo the person on the other end cringed. I seem to be hearing from many including attorneys that Wells Fargo is very hard core, very difficult to deal with and does not budge. I do not understand this. When other lenders are refinancing people in our situation into 3% loans for 40 year terms so they can keep their homes, Wells Fargo won't budge. The guy on the phone even said that because we have a 5% loan it is actually hurting us. The HopeNow program won't help us either. The lady claims we cannot afford our home. We are very frustrated to say the least and are out of options. Any assistance you can provide or direction would be apprecaited. Thank you!

ebecca,

Of everyone who has written into this forum, you may be the best prepared and the one who has taken the most steps in advance. And frankly, I am scratching my head to offer suggestions. What is not totally clear to me is what the appraised value of your home is at this point. Not certain it would make any difference, but would like to know if the combination of your VA and second trust is greater than the appraised value of your home. You indicated that you have a 5% VA loan...what are the terms of the second loan (assume with National City)?

When you mention representative, are you referring to your Congressman? If not, I would immediately contact them and relay your story. While most of our research, experties and efforts are directed to assiting active duty Military Families who get burned during a PCS, I am not unsympathetic to any Veteran's plight. But the truth is, I am out of ideas except to continue to hammer away at Wells Fargo. In the end, they are money ahead by working with you as opposed to a foreclosure. One final thought, there is another board on this forum, "Help for Military Homeowners" that has information on a non profit organazation, NACA that works to save families from foreclosure. I strongly recommend either googling NACA or read / link about them on this forum. I have heard that they are quite successful and if foreclosure is immenient, you should contact them and make them aware of it. Please let us know how things go.

I hope this helps. Joe

I am sure at this point that the payoffs on both mortgages is greater than the appraised value. National City (2nd) is an interest only loan that balloons in 15yrs. We're 2 yrs into that.

I have contacted PA representatives. I haven't yet contacted my Federal representative.

I will check out the NACA and see what I can find.

Thank you for responding to me and so quickly. I have a friend who is an attorney (as I am a paralegal) and he did a pro bono cause against Wells Fargo. He had to get a court order to force them to reform the mortgage to what the people could afford. It's sad really that they are so difficult to deal with.

Thank you again.

Rebecca, we will continue to hope for an acceptable outcome and hope you will keep us updated. We learn from every case, hopefully for the benefit of everyone. If nothing else, it is critical that the fed reps are aware of this escalating circumstance.

Joe

I just wanted to get back to you with an update. Wells Fargo continued to be non-responsive other than offering us an agreement wherein we would resume our normal payments tacking the arrears on the end. They also told us over and over b/c we have a 5% interest rate no one could help us including the Hope Now program. They ultimately started foreclosure while we were listing the house for short sale. We have a short sale pending, foreclosing pending and no one at Wells Fargo knows what the other is doing. After a year of an emotional roller coaster they called us a week ago to offer us some kind of modification (apparently they received some money from the government.) The guy on the phone didn't know they had started foreclosure or that we had a short sale offer waiting their approval. Needles to say regardless of whatever they decide we are emotionally spent and leaving. It is ridiculous that they can't get their act together and now after a year want to start talking.

Rebecca,

You have described in your situation precisely what we see way too frequently. Good folks trying hard to do the right thing, dealing with a completely unresponsive lending bureacracy. Just about every program to date has been optional for the lenders, thus they have been relatively unhelpful.

Our primary focus and expertise is in working with active duty military, however, we are most empathetic with everyone in this situation. I would strongly encourage you check out the link below that has additional info that may be helpful. Also, you may want to seriously consider an attorney that specializes in real estate / foreclosures representation.

We certainly appreciate your sharing your circumstances. It will be helpful to others in this situation.

http://www.loansafe.org/

Joe