Friday, December 2, 2011

Lost your job? Don’t lose your home.

If you live in Tennessee and lost your job, there is a great new program to help you avoid losing your home. Not a lot of people know about it and your mortgage company may not even know about it. It is called “Hardest Hit Fund.”  This program is also available in about a third of the other states of the union but it can differ from state to state and I only know the details of how the program operates in Tennessee.

I am a housing counselor with the Woodbine Community Organization which is a HUD-approved housing counseling agency. I want to tell you about this great new program.

What will the program do: If you qualify, the program will do one of two things,
(1)  it will bring your loan current, or,

(2)  it will make your house payment for you for  up to a year or until $15,000 (or $18,000 in some counties)  has been paid out on your behalf.  

The program provides money in the form of a loan, but it is a “loan” that never has to be repaid, assuming you stay in your house for five more years.  The loan is forgivable at the rate of 20% a year. 

Who qualifies?   
One must have had an income reduction of at least 30%.  Usually, this means you must have lost your job, however, a reduction in work hours or reduction in commissions, or a reduction in earnings if one is self employed, may also qualify one for the program.  The job lost must have been through no fault of your own. If you quit your job, you do not qualify.  If you were dismissed for cause however and subsequently were able to get unemployment benefits, then you still may qualify.  There are other qualifying requirements, but a reduction in income due to job loss or job income reduction is the first test that must be met. 

How to make application:
The easiest thing to do is just call me at 850-3453 and I will walk you through it, or you may do the following:
 (1) Go to the website WWW.KeepMyTNHome.org , log in and answer the twelve qualifying questions and then complete the on-line application.  Be careful. Read the qualifying questions carefully before answering. If you are told you do not qualify and do not understand why, call me at 615-850-3453 and I will review your situation with you on the phone. 
(2) While at the Keep My TN Home website, choose “Woodbine Community Organization” as your counseling agency. That’s me. You will see a question that asks if you are working with a counseling agency. Please answer “yes.”  You will then see a drop down box and you are to select the agency with which you are working. Woodbine Community Organization is the last name on the list in the drop down box.
(3) After, the above is completed, call me, Rod Williams, 615-850-3453. Please call immediately. I will set an appointment with you to complete the Hardest Hit packet. If you do not reach me, please leave a message. You may also email me at Rodwilliams47@yahoo.com.

This is a great program, however not everyone qualifies. The same type documentation that one must provide when financing a home, one must provide to be approved for this loan, and more.  I will walk you through the process.  I have been a housing counselor for over twenty years and while I hesitate to brag on myself, I do what I do very well. I have all of the training and certifications one could have and recognitions and awards. I know how these programs work. If anyone can get you approved for the program, I can.

If you do not need this program, but have coworkers or relatives who may, then please pass this information on to them.  If your civic group, church group, or place of employment located in the Nashville area would like to have me come speak about this program to them as well as other loss mitigation options, I will be glad to do so.

As a word of caution: Please do not pay anyone to help you with mortgage default or loss mitigation services. Most companies charging to provide mortgage default resolution are scam artist who will take your money and deliver no service.  I often see people who have paid a company money to help them save their home, when if they had used that money wisely, it could have been part of a down payment on a mortgage default resolution work-out or at least paid the rent on their new lodging if their home could not be saved.  Also, it seldom helps to pay a lawyer to represent your interest when dealing with a mortgage company. Tennessee is a “non-judicial” state with regards to home foreclosure and there is little an attorney can do for you. 

If you have questions about the Hardest Hit fund or other mortgage default questions, feel free to call me,
Rod Williams (615)850-3453.

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