Financial Assistance Request Package - SIMPLE Guide for Homeowners in Financial Hardship

Homeowners who find themselves no longer able to afford their monthly mortgage payments should reach out to their lender ASAP. The sooner a borrower can focus on finding a solution to their mortgage hardship the better the final outcome will be.

One of the first tasks that will be requested of the homeowner by the lender is to create and submit a financial package for mortgage assistance that details their financial situation and future expectations. The loss mitigation department needs this to access what type if mortgage assistance will best serve the borrowers situation.


No matter who your lender is, what program or type of mortgage assistance you are requesting, or who is negotiating on your behalf, your lender will need to obtain a completed financial package in order to provide you with any sort of mortgage solution or loss mitigation help.



Sell Yourself

You or any homeowner who needs debt help are competing with each other for such an opportunity. With this in mind, we would like you to think of your assistance request package as a pitch and presentation that demonstrates why allowing the opportunity for a mortgage solution is the right decision for your lender to make.

I have coined an Acronym to help drive home the key message.

"S.I.M.P.L.E."

SIMPLE - Sensible Intuitive and Measurable Presentations are Logical and Effective

SIMPLE is the best way to go about preparing a financial package for mortgage assistance.

Sensible

You want to send a sensible response to your lender's request for a financial package.

This means that grabbing a junk folder of various financial statements and receipts from the past 10 years and faxing your lender the resulting mess will not work. Try ever so hard to include all they ask for, but do so with the "less is more" mentality.

You must ensure that you have included all needed information.

Intuitive

The order and organization of all documents should be easily navigable and all documents should be easily identified at first glance.

Measurable

Your request for assistance will be judged on the old cost/benefit decision-making model. Thus your financials need to be measurable and they need to match the measure of your request.

The biggest point here is that your lender needs to be able to easily quantify factors such as income, expenses, and the like. This needs to be done by referencing the source documents such as your bank statements and not just an excel sheet that they must take your word on the accuracy.

Presentations

Though you are sending a package of requested documents that your lender needs you should do so in a manner that is appealing and more importantly in a manner that gives way to the desired decision. To put it simply; Sell It!

Logical

If you follow the first three steps then your package will have a logical prestige to it.

Effective

Thus your efforts will prove effective.

Inside the Financial Package

Cover Page

You should utilize a simple fax cover page template to add a sense of professionalism.

Hardship Letter

The hardship letter is extremely important and should be given considerable effort, time, and consideration before submitting. We highly recommend that you use a hardship letter template of some kind.

Primary Household and Applicable Resident(s) Statement

This just needs to be a simply typed statement that lists the name, age, and relation to all persons who reside at the property of interest. Everyone needs to sign the document.

Financial Budget

This should be a mirrored two-part monthly budget. One of the old budget and one of the new and optimized budget.

3 Months of Bank Statements

The most current statements available to you. They must be complete. Do not send only partials.

3 Months of Pay Stubs

If no pay stubs are obtainable then do whatever is the next best alternative available to you keeping in mind that you must show these are credible source documents.

Tax Permission Form

Last two years of tax returns is a common alternative.

Applicable Documents

Anything that is needed to properly support your lender or your unique needs and situation

Short (handwritten?) Note of Appreciation

This is a nice touch

Submit The Final Package to Your Lender

There is little worst then taking the time, care, and required efforts of completing a wonderful SIMPLE financial package and faxing it over to your lender to only find out a week later that they never received any sort of fax or another excuse such as that it did not come through legibly.

The most effective and reliable way to send the package is by creating a PDF and sending the document as an attachment in an email or sending it via email fax. This way the PDF can be printed and the only thing that could go wrong is that your lender's outdated fax machine dried up and printed a faded version.

Crucial Homeowner Tip and Reminder

It is vital that you are accommodating with your lender. This may sound a little backward at first. But think about the complexity of the loss mitigation function and process that the lender must carry out on a massive scale.

Remember that these loss mitigation operations and the surrounding environment are foreign territories that was unforeseen. To cope with complexity and tedious detail orientated work lenders have utilized a systematic dependent operations model to create as much efficiency as possible.

This is an important consideration for any homeowner who is seeking the help of such an operation. You want to "fall in line" as much as possible so that your file is processed as soon as possible.

This means that you should always check with your lender on the preferred method, organization, and instructions of pursuing whatever mortgage solution you are seeking.

Some lenders have their own specific budget worksheets that they want you to fill out. Other lenders will have customized instructions that were developed for their own specific purpose.

So this all boils down to the important task of asking and following specific submission guidelines.