Cindy, Amen to all! Wish I could wave the magic wand but best I can do is offer a few thoughts.
1. Be sure you are dealing with the loan mitigation department of Citigroup. Go to this citimortgage link, read, scroll down and click the "workable solutions application." It has all the info that the loan mod department will need to be considered. Please note that the package must be complete for them to even consider a loan mod.
2. The second link below is a list of lenders that will refi loans under the Hope for Homeowners Act. There are a lot of gray areas in this, but if you find a lender who will work with you, it may require Citimortgage to write down (absorb the loss) on your current loan. Won't say this will be easy!
http://portal.hud.gov/portal/page?_pageid=73,7605762&_dad=portal&_schema=PORTAL

3. Believe the VA will now convert existing loans to 30 year fixed VA for 90% loan to value. Don't hold me to this and would recommend you contact a loan specialist to verify. Try Susan Wallace: Info on this thread to this forum: http://vrsam.conforums.com/index.cgi?board=Find


4. Join our campaign to force Congress and DOD to act on this critical issue. Go to www.moresam.net and click the flashing blue baloon. You can print pre-written letters to your Congressman / Senators and demand they get this fixed! Addresses available. Then click the on line petition as well. Forward this to all your friends, family, and likeminded military friendly associates and ask them to do the same. By the way, you (or your realtor) can list your home for sale / rent free on this site. Don't hesitate to pick up the phone and call your Congressionman on this as well. Don't forget that they work, in theory, for you! Remind them of this!

I hope this helps. Please keep us updated on this forum and if you would like to get our email updates, just shoot me an email or subscribe on the sign up to the left of the screen.

Hang in there and be certain we at VR SAM are deeply appreciative for your sacrifice and service!

Joe Gladden

Its amazing to me that our family has sacrificed for this country, my husband has fought for this country and we constantly get disregarded. My family has moved from base to base with no questions asked. My kids have changed schools and friends constantly and we've always were proud that we are serving our country. Why is it then our country is not doing their part for us? The government should treat us better. My husband got orders to CA and we are in MA. We don't want to take a loss in our house since it would be roughly 30,000 dollars. We have asked our mortgage company if theirs anything they can do to help....... their answer is no! So now our family has to live without their father..... I guess its just another sacrifice for our country. Here our government is giving away billions of dollars to these banks but what about everyone else who is in trouble? When is it our time to get the help? Things need to change soon. We have way too many men who have been in for 23-24 years and having to get out because of this. The military always says how important family is.... is it? I think our government owes us! We gave our life to this country we'd like some respect back!

All I can say is "AMEN!" I would encourage you to join the hudreds of Military Families who fee just like you do and have written their elected officials DEMANDING that they get this fixed. Please go to www.moresam.net, click the blue box at the top, print the pre-written letters (address available on the site) and mail to your home state elected officials. While on that site, please also check the on line petition. Then call them. Write them again, call them again, and don't stop until they act! Continue to ask your family, friends, and associates to to the same thing! Until enough people are mad enough...it won't get fixed!

Hang in there and please keep us posted!

Joe

I'm sorry to see so many people going through the same situation as me. We were in Iceland a couple years ago when it went through a Brac closure. I was pregnant, and we were told we have 1 month until we leave due to that. Limited orders came overnight and we were sent to MS. Before moving here, we were told there would be no "special preference" into base housing for our situation so we couldn't get on base...there were hardly any rentals due to Katrina destroying the place shortly before and houses that weren't destroyed were outrageous in price at the time due to the same reason. Also being told we could NOT bring the family to MS until we had secured housing due to the problems of Katrina, we ended up finding a mobile home that was decent and bought it. One year after living here we finally became number one for base housing and they called us and asked if we would like to move on base. What a joke! We actually tried to sell then but no luck. Now my husband is gone to recruiting school in FL and will be checking in to WY soon while me and my three children are stuck behind trying to sell the home in this market. Our price is so low we are going to have to pay cash out if someone buys it. Not including the fact we will have to pay this mortgage and rent for my husband in WY. Just more debt incurred. Seems like the buyout program should help not only people who can't sell b/c of a Brac closure but people who got completely "screwed over" for lack of a better term, due to a Brac closure. There has to be something someone can do for these situations.

Kristen,

I think your story is about as powerful an example as I have read! We are constantly getting requests from the media for folks who will step forward, use their name, and tell their story. I never push folks on this issue because I clearly understand the reluctance. However, if you and your husband are willing to talk to the media, please contact me at: homesformilitary@vrsam.com or call 877 878-7726.

I would strongly encourage you to write your Congressmen / Senators immediately! You can print pre-written letters at www.moresam.net, modify if desired, print and mail. Addresses are available on that site.

As we speak our elected officials are contemplating throwing $900,000,000,000 at anything they can find...but they can't find a few milliion, mere chump change, to help our Military Families? Shame on them and shame on the American people for letting them get by with this disgrace!

I would also encourage you to immediately call your home states elected officials as well. They still work for us...I think! You may only get a staffer but I would insist that they make your feelings known, and what they intend to do about it!

Guess you can tell you hit a hot button with us. You and your family have our empathy, appreciation and our prayers!

Please keep us updated and don't take the pressure off them! Joe Gladden, VR SAM Managing Partner.

The hardest part about all of this is that in the current stimulus package, the govt. is supposedly talking (or were talking) about repairing hiking trails and programs to increase testing for STD. Yet, with these things that clearly do NOT stimulate the economy, they have yet to mention one thing about helping the military members and their families!

Its horrid to think our govt. places more importance on repairing hiking trails than helping military families who are being made to PCS to serve our country. Don't we have any representation by the DOD on capitol hill?? Why is this falling by the wayside? Why aren't national news agencies covering the military families forced to live in their vehicles or forced on welfare because of a PCS?

It clearly stimulates the economy to buy out the military families' homes... For one thing, they're more likely to turn around and purchase another home at their PCS, they're likely to STAY in the military to help protect the United States, and they're likely to take their money to make purchases and keep cities with military bases thriving.

If you force foreclosures and short sales on these people, there will be less security clearances granted and therefore less qualified people to protect us. You also have lower morale and more people leaving the military simply because that is their only choice to save their home.

It is RIDICULOUS we help automakers, banks, insurance agencies, etc. but we cannot help our own military families.

I have written my congress and sent the letter to everyone I know to hopefully do the same. My fear is that the only community that is taking time to write are the military families in crisis. PLEASE.... I wish everyone would realize how detrimental this legislation is to EVERYONE! Not just military!!!

Jess,

I am very sorry to hear about your circumstances. I hope you will find some helpful suggestions throughout this forum, which is what it's purpose it.

We hope you will communicate with your elected officials in any manner possible. We have pre-written letters on www.moresam.net that you can print, sign, and mail (addresses) to your Congressmen / Senators.

Please stay tuned and keep us updated on your situation. Joe Gladden

VRSAM wrote:
Thanks for sharing your story with us. You've probably read this in numerous replies to folks who write to this forum but we don't think Military Families should be asked to make these sorts of sacrifices when PCSing. I would strongly encourage you to make your story and thoughts known to your elected officials. Thus far, DOD does not think there is a problem and while you have a relatively "success story" there are perhaps thousands who haven't had a good ending. Congress and DOD need to acknowledge and address this issue immediately. We have prewritten letters with names and addresses at www.moresam.net. Thanks for participating and thanks for your service and determination! Joe Gladden, Managing Partner, VR SAM

I am new to this board, but I am dealing with the same problem. We are a young couple. I am 23 years old and my husband is 27. He's a SSG in the US Army. I am 1 semester short of graduating from college, and a month away from facing foreclosure at 23 years old!!

We bought a house in KS when we reenlisted for Fort Riley for 6+ years. My husband has been here the last 6 so we didn't think we'd be going anywhere until the Army started moving MOS's around. A year into living in our house, we received orders. It was like a worst nightmare. This is after I spent 6 months alone in this house, while he was deployed for the WHOLE first year of our marriage. We've tried exercising many programs but since we've been responsible and we're not behind on our mortgage payments, nobody will help us. This program that helps out our military families says you have to have bought your house by July of 2006. We bought ours in Dec of 2007. I've opened the link you posted and hope to share our story. It's just so frustrating because it feels "too late." I met a woman at the tanning salon that did the same thing, and her husband, a pilot, now has a foreclosure under his belt. They are a young couple, too, with 4 kids. It breaks my heart..

Frustrated too, I am very sorry to hear of your circumstances. I hope you took a moment to take the poll question on every page of this site. Also, you have probably noted our Congressional write in campaign as well. It clearly is a long road, but the only way it will get fixed is if everyone writes to their home state Congressmen and get their friends and families involved as well. It is utterly irresponsible of our government to ask our service families to shoulder this on their own. Please go to www.moresam.net and click the blue bubble. There are pre-written letters and all of the Congressional addresses. Then call them over and over until they get tired of hearing from you and act! We will keep you and all of our service members in our prayers and will do our best to keep the pressure on!

Joe

Just looked at the Army Corp site again waiting to find out some good news about our application we sent in. Since we are 200,000 in the hole it was going to cost us 20K to get out of this house but we felt lucky to have fallen with in the narrow guildlines to qualify. We have packers coming in 3 weeks for our cross country move with 3 kids and 2 dogs and are getting antsy about how the finances are going to work out. Good news was not what I found, now if you receive a payment from this program any amount over the current market value is counted as gross income. I just looked at the 2008 IRS table and at the 33% that leaves us owing $66,000 to the IRS in addition to the 20,000 to cover the 10% as required. $86,000 to use the HAP program as a military family PCSing. How can that be called "assistance"? Who can afford to use this program?

Michelle,

First of all, I am extremely sorry this is hitting your family and it is a twist that I hadn't heard of as there was no reference to tax implications in the original language (that must have been written by a third grader!). It also isn't lost on me that you discover this on Memorial Day, when we honor our Military, Veterans and their Families for their service and sacrifices.

You can probably tell that I have had reservations about this program since it was announced, and your circumstances unfortunately validate my concerns, albeit for other reasons.

Two thoughts. First, I would strongly encourage you to discuss the situation with a CPA familiar with Military Tax rules. Secondly, if your concerns are substantiated, I strongly encourage you to contact your Congressmen / Senators (home state) in writing followed up by a phone call and demand relief on this. I would also encourage the same letter to go directly to the Secretary of Defense and Michelle Obama's office as she has been quite vocal about supporting Military Families.

Finally, other Military Families need to know what you learn. I would appreciate your updates on this site, and when you find time, would like to discuss with you via phone. If you are so inclined, would appreciate a call at 703 754-3036.

Hope you have a safe PCS and know that we will continue to raise awareness of this totally unfair treatment of our Military Families.

Joe Gladden

I haven't read all the post in this thread yet but will get to them soon.

Our story is that we bought a house in Northern VA. We actually closed 5Jul06 (just 5 days from 1Jul). We were told that if you had a contract before July 1, 2006 you can still quailify for the HAP. We signed a contract in May 06, had the appraisal done June 06. We actually bought our house for less than the appraisal. Renting was not an option because 1. Rent was almost more than a house payment, 2. We thought we would be here for at least 6 yrs. 3. Our realtor was horrible & wouldn't even go for that idea!

Anyway the value of our house is down over $125K & continues to drop everyday. My husband got orders for SC for Aug 15, 2009. Once th eorders were published we submitted our packet for HAP! One requirment for submitting a packet is that you have to show that you are trying to sell your house. Within 2 days on the market we received a full price offer on our house. We had to turn it down because there was no guidance from HAP or the Army Corp of Eng. This sucks! The website now says that it can take up to 6 months for approval & processing. My husband called yesterday to find out what we needed to do. The lady suggested that we do a short sale! No way is that an option right know because it will hurt our credit for 3 years and my husband could loose his security clearance! We are going through the Savannah district. We were told that they can't process any yet because they are waiting on the counties to provide them with values of houses. That can be found on the internet. So here we sit & wait! If we wait for 6 months the value is going to drop & the HAP program will have to pay more money out.

Next month a whole lot of foreclosures will be hitting the market making the value of homes to continue to drop!

I have a friend who has a couple of housing lobbiest for the state of SC that work in her office. They are making contacts for me to get this rolling. I am not sure what to do from here!

Sorry to be so long. I am glad to read that I am not along in this process. Does anyone have any other suggestions on what we need to & where we should go from here?

Shannon

Guest-anon wrote:
Its horrid to think our govt. places more importance on repairing hiking trails than helping military families who are being made to PCS to serve our country. Don't we have any representation by the DOD on capitol hill?? Why is this falling by the wayside? Why aren't national news agencies covering the military families forced to live in their vehicles or forced on welfare because of a PCS?

If you force foreclosures and short sales on these people, there will be less security clearances granted and therefore less qualified people to protect us. You also have lower morale and more people leaving the military simply because that is their only choice to save their home.

It is RIDICULOUS we help automakers, banks, insurance agencies, etc. but we cannot help our own military families.



You made some wonderful points! Why is it that the military has to be down at the bottom. Where is our help! I am also contacting my sentors & congress! Maybe if we all flood their offices, something will get done! (Wishfull thinking maybe).

Guest-frustrated in MA wrote:
Its amazing to me that our family has sacrificed for this country, my husband has fought for this country and we constantly get disregarded. My family has moved from base to base with no questions asked. My kids have changed schools and friends constantly and we've always were proud that we are serving our country. Why is it then our country is not doing their part for us? The government should treat us better. My husband got orders to CA and we are in MA. We don't want to take a loss in our house since it would be roughly 30,000 dollars. We have asked our mortgage company if theirs anything they can do to help....... their answer is no! So now our family has to live without their father..... I guess its just another sacrifice for our country. Here our government is giving away billions of dollars to these banks but what about everyone else who is in trouble? When is it our time to get the help? Things need to change soon. We have way too many men who have been in for 23-24 years and having to get out because of this. The military always says how important family is.... is it? I think our government owes us! We gave our life to this country we'd like some respect back!




Frustrated in MA!
I am not sure where you are now or what has happened in your housing sitution. The bank won't help us out because we aren't behind on any payments! We have used all the equity in our house because of the declining maket & the bank won't help us out. We have applied for the HAP program but it doesn't seem like we are going to get much help with them right away. We have talked about renting our house but still you can't rent out the house for what our mortgage paymnet is now! I agree why can't the government help us just like we help them! I can't figure it all out! Good luck with whatever happens!

So three years ago when the market crashed we got PCS orders to leave the DC area. We could not sell our house and finally rented it after paying double mortgage for ten months and depleting our savings. We had lousy late paying tenants but at least it covered the mortgage. After the lease was up we ended up selling a month ago. We lost all the money we put into thehouse and had to bring money to the closing table. But we did not lose "enough" for the HAP to help.

Meanwhile, we just got orders to return to the area !!! So we have been trying tosell this house. Knowing we were coming up on orders, we put the house on the market 6 1/2 months ago,. We have dropped the price 35K and hubby is leaving TOMORROW to go live in my uncle's guest room in Virginia. The kids and I are stuck and cannot sell. School starts here in less than three weeks. We cannot rent without losing over 1000 a month due to the hefty property taxes in this state. So we are literally stuck. Cannot afford to rent, cannot rent hubby a place and cannot sell. If this does not destroy our marriage it will be a miracle. It's worse than any of his deployments because at least then, we knew when it would be over. This has no end in sight.

Thanks for letting me vent. Twenty years in service and this is how we end up.