Greta Guest, Detroit Free Press
The federal government’s loan modification program, intended to help people save their homes by lowering payments, remains mired in long waits, denials of permanent modifications and shockingly large bills at the end of failed trial modifications.
One homeowner owed more than $21,000 after his lender denied him a permanent modification, even though his income was the same as when it approved a temporary modification.
“They string me along for nine months. These are nine months I’m getting further behind,” said Patrick Dinunzio, 61, of Romeo.
In Michigan, 30,625 loan modifications were completed in April, down 9% from March. There are roughly 90,727 Michigan homeowners eligible for loan modification, according to Free Press calculations.
“Our focus now is on improving the homeowner experience and holding servicers accountable for their performance,” Phyllis Caldwell, chief of the U.S. Treasury Department’s Homeownership Preservation Office, said last week. By July, the eight largest loan servicers will need to report more information to the government, including homeowner experience.
“The story is always the same,” said Adam Taub, a consumer attorney based in Southfield. “They are stringing people along by telling them not to make payments or having them make reduced payments and then denying the home loan mod. Then people are even closer to foreclosure.”
Lenders, for their part, say they are trying to help distressed borrowers.
Is a deal with the bank the best way to go?
Past a pheasant ranch, assorted McMansions, crop fields and 2 miles of bumpy dirt roads, Dinunzio anxiously awaits the fate of his 1901 farmhouse in Romeo.
Dinunzio, 61, an artist and laid-off machinist, has lived with his wife, Ilene, in the 109-year-old white house on 24 acres for 17 years. Two refinances and a job loss pushed him toward a loan modification.
The temporary modification cut his $1,720 monthly payment to $697, based on his income. It lasted nine months, even though government guidelines call for a three-month trial period.
