Six steps to maintain your sanity and your life if your bank is threatening to foreclose on your hom

First, take a deep breath

Take a few moments to calm yourself and to practice some self-care. You are not alone; and you are not your current situation. Don’t go into the shame and blame mode. It’s important not to panic. So take everything one day at a time, one moment at a time.

Take positive action

No one ever wants to be in the situation where they are facing the loss of a home. When I found myself in this situation after my divorce this past year, like most people, I felt overwhelmed and ashamed at first. But I didn’t let myself stay stuck in that place. Instead, I took action - from small steps to bigger steps, to stay focused and positive. While I can’t promise you that these steps will help you keep your home, they can help you remain calm and positive so that you don’t lose your health from all the stress. This way, you can make better decisions to move yourself forward beyond this chapter.

Develop an action plan

Once you are calm and can assess the situation, start thinking long term so you can develop an action plan. Is the situation that caused you to get behind temporary? Did you experience a loss of income through a divorce or a lay-off, which means the mortgage payment is more than you can afford on your own? Can you earn extra income to meet the mortgage obligation?

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Here’s what I did.

1.CALL: Call your bank immediately when you know you will not be able to catch up the mortgage payment. The phone number for calling is usually listed on your mortgage statement. It’s important to work with your bank immediately, so that you know your options. There are options, so just stay calm and investigate. Most banks don’t want to foreclose. It doesn’t look good on their balance sheet. And no one comes to your door with a baseball bat. So stay positive. Be polite to the people you speak to at your bank.

2.Ask your mortgage holder (bank) for a “Request for Mortgage Assistance,” (RMA) package to be sent to you and ask what it entails. Once you are behind on your mortgage, you will be placed on an automatic calling list, so that you will likely receive calls every week asking how you intend to pay the past due. Simply tell the person who calls that you have requested an RMA package. Once you are in the pipeline for the package, you will usually be assigned a “relationship manager,” a single point of contact who is available to answer your questions and to help you with the RMA application.

3.List: While waiting for the package to arrive, which usually takes a few days, even a week, sit down and make a list of things you can do to help your situation. While not all of these ideas may work for you, they will at least get you started on thinking, and, will help you not to freeze. Here are some ideas that I tried:

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Ten things you can do right away to keep your home

A.Rent out a room in your home to earn extra income.

B.Rentmout your home or a part of it on Airbnb or through Evolve or a similar venue. (These days, this can be quite lucrative. I rented out the top floor and found I had lots of interest.)

C.Rentmout the entire home, if you can move into a temporary living situation that is super cheap or free (such as a camper trailer/anything to keep your home), so that you can pay the mortgage.

D.Contact a real estate agent to conduct a market evaluation so that you can list your home to sell it. The bank will usually offer a relocation fee of about $1,000 to $1,500 to help you get into a new home. (I listed my home and found that the process of moving everything out so that we could stage it was a positive experience, although at first it was overwhelming. It lightened things up, and made my home so much fresher, and that enabled me to list it on Airbnb.)

E.Contact your county to see if you can short plat, if you have acreage, so that you can possibly sell off an acre to bring the mortgage current. (I tried this, but I have a creek running through the property, and the rules for habitat prevented a short plat.)

F.Look into a side hustle, a promotion, or a new job that pays more.

G.Look through belongings to determine if you have items you can sell.

H.You might ask yourself if downsizing would be a better option anyway, so that you can get your finances in order. Maybe it’s time for a move to a new city. Looking at the situation from a positive standpoint is better than wallowing in self-pity.

I.Ask others for ideas. Work with your family as a team. Be kind to each other.

J.Be resilient and persistent with ideas. Keep asking yourself for ideas. Don’t give up. (Even when I received a letter that my bank was sending my package to an attorney to begin the foreclosure process, because a sale had fallen through, I submitted a new RMA package and pushed them to consider it.

K. (You can probably expand this list all the way to Z)

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4.READ. As soon as you have the RMA package from the bank, read it thoroughly and take action. (That means, fill it out accurately and get it back to the bank as soon as possible. My bank had an email that I could submit documents to, so I did this so that I would receive an email confirmation that my documents had arrived.) The documents will arrive in a large envelope and include several pages. It’s very similar to a loan application. There are laws which protect homeowners, so most banks include a flyer that lists these laws, along with the various options which might be available to you such as selling your home, asking for a loan remodification, and more. There are also various agencies which have been established to help people who are facing the loss of their home. These include HUD and others.

Some of the steps that are generally included in the RMA include the following:

• a.Complete the application, which looks similar to a loan application, which lists your income and expenses.
• b.Look through the available resources that might be able to assist you. These include HUD, attorneys, and others.
• c.Make a “Target List,” a list of all resources, including contact information, leaving room for notes.
• d.Call each one of them, taking notes of time/date and the person to whom you speak. Since every situation is unique (every home loan is different and circumstances vary) not all of the options apply to everyone. Find what works for you.

5.Organize: Get a three-ring binder so that you can organize your communications with the bank. Keep all documents and your notes in the binder, organized by date. You will begin receiving letters as the process unfolds. You will receive your normal mortgage statement, showing the amounts in arrears, along with other letters notifying you of where your bank stands in the process of the mortgage assistance. Depending on your bank and the current economy or situation with homes being in default, it may take some time before you receive a letter from the bank. You will receive a letter that either tells you they need more information, or letting you know that your application is “facially” complete. In the meantime, your relationship manager usually calls you to keep you updated. You can always check in with that person too, to see what the status of the process is.

6.Keep living: While you are going through the steps, continue to live your life. Keep up on tasks. I find that marking off tasks motivates me. Get rest and take naps. Get exercise. I walk my dogs and care for my son and chickens.For me, my spiritual life is important, so I have been praying. I also stay busy with my work and look for opportunities. I am studying online marketing and SEO and looking at building a business.

And if you need help, let me know in the comments below. Here is a list of the books I have been reading to help me stay positive and on track:

The Bible, especially passages in Psalms.

13 Things Mentally Strong People Don’t Do. By Amy Morin, http://amymorinlcsw.com/mentally-strong-people/ (Also watch her TED talk)

Play the game, SuperBetter. By Jane McGonigal https://www.superbetter.com/

SuperBetter increases resilience - the ability to stay strong, motivated and optimistic even in the face of difficult obstacles. Playing SuperBetter makes you more capable of getting through any tough situation—and more likely to achieve the goals that matter most to you. Proven results in just 10 minutes a day.