Mortgage Blog

I have received several email from visitors who have been asking how to research which company owns their mortgage.  Don’t borrowers have the right to know who owns their mortgage? I need to work out a loan modification or refinance but can’t find out who to contact and the servicing company will not assist me.

Of the nightmares facing homeowners caught up in the mortgage net, this one issue is perhaps the most frustrating. From individual lenders to the government-sponsored Hope Now Alliance devoted to untangling this type of mess, the standardized advice to borrowers is the same: as soon as you think you’re headed for trouble, contact your mortgage lenders to see about working out an alternate payment plan or even request that your lender to help you by moving your loan to a lower rate on a fixed note.

It’s good advice. The sooner you act, the better your chances of not falling so far behind the situation becomes irreversible. For their part, lenders don’t want you to lose your home or generated income either. The last thing they need is another property to add to the long list of unsold properties on their books, and subsequently more lost earnings.

In order to contact your mortgage lender means you must first figure out who owns your loan. In the fallout of the housing boom, some lenders simply went out of business or were divested or acquired by bigger lenders — and these defaulted loans hence changed hands.

As the mortgage market rains have dried up, lenders have had to lay off workers who, just a few years ago, had a hard time keeping up with the flood of new mortgages. Now, with foreclosures rising, there are fewer employees on the other end of the phone to help homeowners in trouble. Experienced real estate attorneys and professional housing counselors report that they’re also not having much luck navigating the maze of voicemail.

Even worse, there may be no particular one owner of your loan if the original mortgage was bundled with hundreds of others and placed in a trust which was then sold off in fragmented interests to hundreds of mortgage investors. The servicer — the company hired to make sure the monthly payments got to the right investors and never expected so many home loans go so badly. So they weren’t really set up to re-negotiate payment terms with literally thousands of borrowers.

Still, many of these type servicers do have the legal authority to work with you on a payment option that you can handle. It’s their job to maximize investors’ returns, and having you default isn’t going to help anyone. If you can get through to the servicer’s mitigation honchos, you might be able to get the conversation going.

A better option might be to get some help from a HUD-approved housing counselor or a lawyer who specializes in working with lenders and may be able to help you cut through the sea of red tape. As recommended by Texas Mortgage Loans, Check out Web site of the National Foundation for Credit Counseling to locate an office near where you live. If you can’t afford legal support, look for a non-profit services office and most of them spend a lot more time on mortgage and housing issues.