Get Help Now With Rent And Mortgage Payments
Are you having trouble paying your rent or mortgage because of the COVID-19 pandemic? Have you lost your job or lost income during the Covid-19 health crisis? Are you at risk of becoming homeless?
You may be eligible to receive help with paying your rent or mortgage. The Massachusetts Department of Housing and Community Development offers programs that can assist low-income households. Find Spanish language resources about these programs.
Federal Emergency Rental Assistance Program may provide up to 18 months of help with overdue and/or future rent , as well as some help with utility costs. Applicants must have had a COVID-related financial hardship. For those that do not qualify for ERAP, the Residential Assistance for Families in Transition and Emergency Rental and Mortgage Assistance programs may provide income-eligible households with up to $10,000 to pay overdue or future rent,or mortgage or utility costs. There is one application for all three programs, staff at regional agencies will determine your eligibility.
Landlords and tenants who do not have a written lease can document their agreement by using a simple Tenancy at Will Form , or another form of written documentation.It is very important you complete your application to the fullest extent possible when you submit.
Please use this tool to find your regional agency and see the income limits for eligibility in your region based on household size. You can also call 2-1-1 for more information.
Frequently Asked Questions On The Mimortgage Relief Partnership
How do I get mortgage relief and/or forbearance?
Michigan borrowers experiencing a financial hardship due to COVID-19 are encouraged to reach out directly to their financial institution to learn the details of the relief options available to them. Borrowers are encouraged to reach out before their loan becomes delinquent. DIFS never advises borrowers to stop paying their loan payments.
How long will the forbearance last?
The terms of a forbearance will be agreed to between you and your financial institution. Financial institutions will confirm approval and terms of the forbearance program.
How should I contact my lender to learn about my options?
Please note that financial institutions and their servicers are experiencing high volumes of inquiries and may recommend using online services, when available, for the quickest service. Loans held by a financial institution may be serviced by another company.
What if I have a federally-backed mortgage?
Lenders who service federally-backed mortgages are subject to federal rules. Borrowers with these loans may wish to visit the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau guide to coronavirus mortgage relief options.
How do I know if my financial institution is participating in MiMortgage Relief Partnership?
Where can I go if I have further questions or concerns?
Contact the Department of Insurance and Financial Services :
877-999-6442 Monday Friday, 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM
How Does A Covid
Fannie Mae is offering repayment options for homeowners who missed their mortgage payments due to a financial hardship related to COVID-19. In fact, earlier this year, Fannie Mae announced a new COVID-19 payment deferral option.
This payment option defers the amount you owe to the end of your loan term . You will have to pay the missed amount when you make your last loan payment or pay off the balance of the loan .
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Mortgage Loan Lookup Tool
Use the simple Fannie Mae Mortgage Loan Lookup Tool to find out if Fannie Mae owns your mortgage. If we own your loan, you may qualify for programs providing payment relief including a forbearance plan or loan modification.
Fannie Mae’s Disaster Response Network is another resource you can utilize. When you contact the Disaster Response Network, HUD-approved housing counselors can develop a personalized action plan, explain mortgage relief or rental assistance programs, provide financial coaching, and support your successful recovery for up to 18 months.
What Is A Forbearance Plan
If you own your home and are experiencing financial hardship as a result of COVID-19, you may be able to receive a forbearance plan.
Entering into a forbearance plan can give you some financial breathing room. A forbearance plan doesnt erase the amount you owe on a mortgage, but it temporarily suspends or reduces your mortgage payment until your hardship is over. At the end of the forbearance plan, you must repay what you missed, but necessarily not all at once.
Talk with your servicer about your situation, so they can help you and give you the best mortgage relief option for your situation.
If you were current on your loan before you started a forbearance plan or another accommodation covered by the CARES Act, you will be reported as current to the credit bureau as long as you continue to make payments as required by the plan youre set up in, or as long as no payments are required under the plan.
Fannie Mae can help you learn more about what to expect on a forbearance plan and when youre ready to move forward, you can start here.
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Do I Have Options After Forbearance
A forbearance plan doesnt erase the amount you owe on a mortgage. At the end of the forbearance plan, you must repay missed amounts, but you are not required to repay it all at once.
About a month before your forbearance plan is scheduled to end, your mortgage servicer will contact you to discuss your situation.
Several repayment options are available after forbearance. Its important to understand the available options and work with your servicer to determine what option is appropriate based on your unique financial circumstances.
Federal Housing Administration Forbearance
Technically the Federal Housing Administration Special Forbearance isn’t a grant, but it accomplishes the same thing no cash out of pocket for mortgage payments without modifying your loan. If you have an FHA loan, ask your lender about the forbearance. Forbearances are available for eligible loans when borrowers become unemployed. The forbearance suspends mortgage payments for up to 12 months.
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Mortgage Assistance From Banks And Lenders
Mortgage forbearance programs are offered by numerous lenders, including Bank of America, JP Morgan, Citibank, and Wells Fargo. Forbearance allows borrowers a temporary suspension of their monthly mortgage payments. So a homeowner will have time to explore their options, receive counseling, or modify their loan during this timeframe. In addition, a foreclosure on your home will not occur during the forbearance period. Learn more on mortgage forbearance.
Associated Bank is offeringa mortgage assistance program that will help the unemployed stay in their homes by modifying their monthly payment for up to 12 months. It can lower a borrowers monthly interest rates or suspend their payments for a period of time. More on Associated Bank mortgage assistance programs.
Bank of America Foreclosure Prevention – From January 2008 thru current, BOA has modified hundreds of thousands of mortgages. Some of those home loans were originally issued and held by Countrywide. Bank of America offers homeowners several foreclosure and mortgage assistance programs, including modifications, principal reduction, short sales, interest rate reductions and other resources. The lender also has opened help centers in many major cities, which provide homeowners with one on one counseling and free advice. Read more on all of the Bank of America foreclosure programs.
Forbearance Ends With A Payment Plan Not A Lump
Homeowners who receive COVID hardship forbearance are not required to repay their paused payments in a lump sum once the forbearance period ends. You can talk with your mortgage servicer, or start with a HUD-approved housing counseling agency, to discuss a repayment plan that works for your situation.
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Hopes For A Smooth Mortgage Aid Process
Graves says the closest example to the new mortgage aid program was an Obama-era plan created in response to the Great Recession. The “Hardest Hit Fund” was designed to assist the states hit hardest by the subprime lending crisis.
The federal government funneled the funds through each states housing agency then, too. But there were challenges.
“It was done by the states in fits and starts. There were a lot of states that got a very slow start and tripped over themselves because this was new,” Graves says.
He hopes the rollout will be smoother this time: “Since this is similar, there should be some institutional knowledge in each of these state housing finance agencies so they can take their original programs and tweak them to match the current environment.”
Mortgage Aid: How It Works
- The Homeowners Assistance Fund can help you pay not only your mortgage, but also your taxes, insurance, utilities and common charges like monthly homeowners association dues.
- The U.S. Treasury Department is sending money to states to distribute direct financial assistance through state housing agencies.
- The amount of mortgage aid depends on each states number of late mortgage payments, foreclosures and unemployment statistics, for example.
- States must spend this Covid-19 mortgage relief by September 30, 2025.
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Understand What You Owe
The first thing to do if you’re falling behind on your loan repayments is to work out exactly what you owe.
Once you’ve got a handle on how much you need to pay back, make sure to calculate a budget based on what you spend on all your outgoings and how much cash you have left over to meet your repayments.
If you don’t have enough cash to cover everything you owe, then prioritise your debts and pay off the most serious ones.
Your rent, mortgage, council tax and energy bills should be paid first because the consequences can be more serious if you don’t pay.
Homeowners Struggling To Make Their Mortgage Payments Get New Help From Biden
The White House has announced several options to reduce your monthly payment by up to 25%.
While most U.S. homeowners have come through the pandemic unscathed, or even further ahead thanks to money-saving refinances at cheap mortgage rates, millions of others have had to opt for forbearance to put their loan payments on hold. A federal foreclosure ban provided them further protection.
Now, those safeguards are falling away.
Though more than 1.74 million mortgages were still in forbearance as of Aug. 10, according to mortgage data and technology provider Black Knight, the foreclosure moratorium expired on July 31, after multiple extensions.
Some homeowners may find themselves unable to resume their regular payments if lenders refuse to extend their forbearance periods. But if thats the boat youre in, new initiatives from President Joe Biden’s administration could help keep you afloat.
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Foreclosure And Forbearance Information For Homeowners
Beyond the financial assistance available through RAFT and ERMA detailed above, there are additional resources available for homeowners concerned about paying their mortgage due to the coronavirus national emergency. It is important that you contact your mortgage servicer as soon as possible to let them know about your current circumstances.
The Federal CARES Act provides protections for owner-occupants of 1-4 family properties with mortgages that are federally or Government Sponsored Enterprise backed or funded . You can learn about your options, find out if you quality, and request forbearance or mortgage relief by visiting the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau website.
A forbearance means that the monthly mortgage payments that you would otherwise have been required to pay to your lender/servicer are not required to be made for a period of 180 days. If your mortgage was not in default prior to the forbearance period, the mortgage will not go into default by reason of your missed monthly mortgage payments during the 180-day forbearance period. A forbearance does not mean that these monthly mortgage payments are forgiven. You still owe the mortgage loan payments, but they will be added to the end of the mortgage loan term
It is also important to remember that a forbearance is not automatic. You need to contact your lender/servicer to request a forbearance and affirm that you have experienced a negative financial impact due to COVID-19.
Federal Resources
Helpful Links
Use Government Gse’s Mortgage Relief Program
If you owe less than $356,362 on your home, use the GSE’s mortgage relief program.
“GSE” Definition – Government Sponsored Enterprises or Entities that include The Federal National Mortgage Association , The Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation and The Federal Agricultural Mortgage Corporation
Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae have adopted a new refinance option for loans to borrowers with incomes at or below 80% of area median income. If your mortgage is owned or guaranteed by either Freddie Mac or Fannie Mae, you may be able to refinance your mortgage under this refinance option, subject to certain qualifications. You can determine whether your mortgage is owned by either Freddie Mac or Fannie Mae by checking the following websites:
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Modified Credit Score Calculations For Joint Borrowers
In addition to allowing consideration of rent payment history, Fannie Mae has adjusted the way it handles multiple applicants’ credit scores to determine mortgage eligibility. Fannie Mae calls for lenders to get two or three credit scores per applicant. If two scores are used, the lower of the two is used as each applicant’s representative credit score if three scores are used, the middle one numerically serves as the representative score.
Previously, if two borrowers applied jointly for a conforming mortgage, the lower of their representative credit scores was used to determine loan eligibilitymeaning that the application would be denied if either applicant had a representative score below 620.
Under revised rules, a loan can be approved if the average of joint applicants’ representative credit scores is 620 or greater. This means an applicant with a representative credit score below 620which might indicate a limited or spotty credit historycould still qualify as a borrower if their co-applicant’s score is high enough to average it out.
This revised calculation, along with the ability to take credit for rent payment history, is intended to broaden home-financing opportunities for people with limited credit histories.
Keep Your Home California
Keep Your Home California offers an Unemployment Mortgage Assistance grant specifically for homeowners who are collecting unemployment benefits. The grant pays up to $3,000 per month designated for mortgage payments for up to 18 months. The household cap is $54,000 in benefits. Benefits can run out, although the program has more than a billion dollars allocated for resources. Apply early.
UMA grants target low- to moderate-income communities, helping homeowners maintain a stable home environment while finding new work or acquiring skills for a new career. Homeowners may still be eligible for loan modification and receive this grant.
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Olivias Story: Transplant & Liv It Up
Olivia was just an average middle school girl living in a small town in Indiana when a cancer diagnosis turned her world was turned upside down. After chemotherapy failed to stop the cancer, doctors recommended a bone marrow transplant. Olivias family couldnt afford the $350,000 surgery, so a friend came to the rescue and helped raise over $300,000 in just five months through GoFundMe.
Nc Homeowner Assistance Fund Under Development
The NC Homeowner Assistance Fund is being administered by the NC Housing Finance Agency using $273 million that was allocated to North Carolina under the American Rescue Plan to prevent mortgage delinquencies, defaults, displacements, and foreclosures for homeowners experiencing financial difficulties after January 21, 2020, due to the coronavirus pandemic. This program is being supported, in whole or in part, by federal award number HAF0019 awarded to the State of North Carolina by the US Department of the Treasury.
The US Department of the Treasury requires all states to develop and submit a plan in order to receive the funds. Below is a tracker outlining the phases the NC Housing Finance Agency must follow and the status of where we are in the process. The Agency is committed to acting quickly and opening the program to applicants as soon as all the required steps are completed as outlined and approved by the US Treasury and the program is in place. Learn more.
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Most Servicers Must Offer Forbearance And The Others Can Provide Options
The COVID hardship forbearance applies to all federally backed and federally sponsored mortgages, which includes HUD/FHA, VA, USDA, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac mortgage loans. This includes most mortgages. Homeowners with federally backed loans have the right to ask for and receive a forbearance period for up to 180 dayswhich means you can pause or reduce your mortgage payments for up to six months. Additionally, you can request an extension of forbearance for up to 180 additional days, for a total of 360 days.
UPDATE: Since this video was released, federal agencies have provided more options to extend forbearance.
- , orVA: You may request up to two additional three-month extensions, for up to a maximum of 18 months of total forbearance. But to qualify, you must have received your initial forbearance on or before June 30, 2020. Check with your servicer about the options available.
Other mortgages may also provide similar forbearance options. If you are struggling with payments, servicers are generally required to discuss relief options with you, whether or not your loan is federally backed.
Talk To Mortgage Servicing Company
Many grants are offered at city and community levels. Ask your servicing company about programs that can help you with mortgage payments. There may be grants unique to your area. Additionally, find out if you qualify for one of the many modification programs that reduce interest or principal, or perhaps extend the loan, thereby reducing payments.
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