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Feldman Law Center – News by Feldman Law Center – “It’s a jungle out there, kiddies…” – Jimmy Buffet
Jimmy Buffet wasn’t talking about the home loan modification process, but he could have been. For home owners attempting to pick their way through a loan modification on their own, the experience is not much different than heading into the wild without a guide. Getting lost (waiting weeks for a reply to the simplest questions), taking wrong turns requiring backtracking (multiple submissions of the same paperwork), and surprise attacks from wildlife (rejection of your application for the slightest mis-step) are all part of the territory.
Steven Feldman, of The Feldman Law Center in Mission Viejo, California said recently, “We’ve negotiated loan modifications with just about every lender and servicer in the business. It’s amazing how each one has a slightly different method of measuring qualifying criteria, how much weight certain information carries, and what constitutes a deal breaker.”

The same information submitted to different lenders will often result in completely different outcomes. Amounts in disposable income, in terms of what is too much and what is too little, have different thresholds at different lenders. The same can be said for debt-to-income ratios, current income, expenses, and estimated payment capability. The tiniest of variations in set parameters between lenders can make a huge difference in the number and types of homeowners that qualify for home loan modifications.