Can’t pay your mortgage? Sometimes an unforeseen financial situation can happen and you might not be able to make your regular mortgage payment.
I can’t stress this enough — take immediate action at the first sign of distress and work together with a mortgage broker to find a solution to this difficulty.
The worst thing you can do is ignore it as open and early communication with your lender is the best action to take. Lenders get upset when you ignore them and are less likely to negotiate with you.
This one step will increase the chance of managing this difficult situation and early intervention is very important. We need to fully understand your financial situation in order to assist but there may be a solution.
Most Canadians don’t know what options are available. Did you know that some lenders will allow you to ‘skip-a-payment’ and this option might be available as part of your mortgage features.
If you ignore the situation too long you could find yourself facing foreclosure if you are in one of these situations:
- You are about to miss a mortgage payment because you don’t have the funds to pay
- You have missed one or two mortgage payments
- You have received a notice or demand letter from your mortgage lender
- Or you have been serviced a Petition for foreclosure
If any of this applies to you, this is a serious situation and you may be on your way to foreclosure.
The easiest thing to do is ignore any phone calls from your lender or the demand letter that they may have sent to you, but doing so is really the worst thing you can do and here are some of the consequences of ignoring the situation.
- You won’t have any say in the court proceedings and they will go on without you
- If the home is sold you will get little if any notice that you have to vacate the property
- You may have less time to stay in your home than if you had appeared in court
You may have some options to solve this problem but speaking early to a mortgage broker is really your best course of action if you are unable redeem your mortgage by bringing your payments up-to-date along with any legal costs incurred by your lender.
Here are some ways that a mortgage broker can advise you:
- Perhaps you can refinance to lower your monthly payments to keep you within your budget.
- We can see if we can obtain a new mortgage with another lender and pay off your current lender
- We can take a look and see if there is enough equity in your home to make selling it yourself worthwhile
- Or if we can’t solve your problem, then going to court may be the best option
If you fall behind on your mortgage the interest and costs can accumulate very quickly and it is critical to seek assistance early before things get out of your control so please give me a call at 1-888-561-2679 for a confidential conversation or email me at april.dunn@mtgarc.ca.