Business Startup Loans

Here is some advice when dealing with your  Washington Loan Modification.

First, you need to realize that in Washington, whoever is helping you with a loan modification must also be a licensed mortgage officer.  In fact, it is illegal to help facilitate or negotiate a loan modification unless you are a licensed mortgage officer and has with success  met all the state exam requirements.

You would think that most homeowners would know not to work with people who claim to be experts without having a list of happy clients that the homeowner can contact at will  .  However, this has shown to clearly not be the case as perhaps hundreds of thousands of homeowners fall victim to scam artists on a daily basis.

A great example of this are the  people that charge up-front fees without doing any pre-screening .  Without doing any research on behalf of the client, a company will propose to offer a loan modification for a high flat fee that is non-refundable.  Typically, the fee is much higher then what any government financial institution would ever recommend. 

Companies like these will then collect the fee, make a few calls to the lender   and in the event of failure, simply apologize and remind them that the fee was a non-refundable one.

Do not fall victim to these kinds of companies .  The correct way for a company to charge a homeowner is to first  interview the client  to determine whether they are a candidate for a loan modification.  Then, an actual research call should be made.  After it is clear that a modification is possible, a fee can be charged for assembling the loan modification package (which is a service in and of itself and is not contingent upon whether the modification is successful or not).  Then, a secondary fee should be charged for the actual negotiations phase, which should be charged based on an hourly basis (similar to an attorney).

 By clearly defining what the homeowner is actually paying for , the homeowner will be able to determine whether the company is going their job or not, which if they aren’t, can be reported to their local consumer protection division.  An easy way to determine the legitimacy of the company you are working with on your Washington Loan Modification is to simply inquire about them with your local consumer protection division. 

So how much SHOULD a company charge?  Fortunately, this is not a guessing game.. 

In Washington, the Department of Financial Institution has graciously released an interpretive letter outlining  a pricing structure as recommended by the director and staff attorney.   

In that letter is a clear explanation of how much a homeowner should be paying for their loan modification.  To obtain more information on the correct pricing structure for  Washington Loan Modification, simply click here.

Yours truly,

Kevin