Don't Give Up if Your Indiana Mortgage Settlement Conference Fails

            During my time as an attorney at Halcomb Singler and at my previous law firm I have attended several settlement conferences in Hamilton County, Indiana.  If you have been on the receiving end of a mortgage foreclosure lawsuit in the last several months you may have noticed a document served with the initial complaint and summons giving you the right to request a settlement conference.  I'll give you a nickel's worth of free advice.......fill out the settlement conference request form and send it back to the Court.  If you want to try to stay in your house you should request a settlement conference.

           An Indiana mortgage foreclosure settlement conference is nothing to be nervous about and might end in a way for you to keep your house.  You can expect that this conference will typically be at your local courthouse, but will not be in a courtroom in front of a judge.  In Hamilton County these conferences have been taking place in the jury assembly room or in a room off of the planning commission.  So, don't stay up all night attempting to write out your plea or argument to the judge....because he or she will not be found at your settlement conference.  What you can expect to find at an Indiana settlement conference is an attorney who represents your mortgage lender and a phone.  The phone is there so that the attorney can call someone at the mortgage company who is required to be available at the time of your settlement conference to determine whether the lender wants to allow a modification to your loan.

          Unfortunately, the attorney there for the bank probably knows little to nothing about your case.  It is unlikely that the attorney has read the hardship letters you have written or reviewed your bank statements.  If I am brutally honest it is unlikely that the attorney would know your name without looking at his or her file.  Also, the attorney typically has no real bearing on what your mortgage lender will or will not do at the settlement conference.

           The decision-maker at a settlement conference is typically going to be the person on the phone.  In order for the person on the phone to give you an answer about whether they can in some way modify your loan it is important that you provide all of the requested documentation.  Prior to the settlement conference you will receive a list of documents required to be submitted for the lender's review.  These documents typically include recent pay stubs, bank statements, a budget of your expenses, a hardship letter, etc.  Chances are that you have submitted these documents 5 to 10 times to your mortgage lender already.  Even if this is true, just go ahead and submit them again and bring a copy of all of the documents you submitted to the settlement conference.

           I believe that each homeowner should at least mentally prepare to tell the mortgage lender representative on the phone what the homeowner can do to keep the house.  In my opinion, dwelling on all of the negatives that likely led the homeowner to get behind on the house should not be the focus of this conversation.  Instead, the homeowner should focus on what they can do at that moment to get back to being current or what type of payment they could afford to make, etc.  For example, if your mortgage payment with taxes and insurance is $1100.00 per month and you can no longer afford that payment, but would be able to afford $850.00 let the mortgage lender representative know that.  If you could also get some money from a relative, from your own savings, because you have recently sold something, etc., then tell the mortgage lender that too.  My point is that if you focus on how bad the economy is, how no one has a job, how broke you are and how it is all the mortgage company's fault (all of which may be true) then you are giving the mortgage lender representative all the information they need to report to the lender and the Court that you have no money and no means to repay and to report that the settlement conference was unsuccessful.  And, you have a very limited time to get your point across because there is likely another settlement conference scheduled 15 minutes after yours started.

           That's right.  At the end of the 15 minute settlement conference if that one person on the phone from the mortgage lender isn't convinced that you can pay the lender then they will simply say something to the effect of, we are sorry, but we do not believe that a settlement is feasible in this case and we will report an unfavorable settlement conference to the court.  It is really that simple.  Again, there is no judge to rule at this time....it is really more of a unilateral mortgage determination and less of a settlement conference.

           While some mortgage foreclosure settlement conferences in Indiana do end with great success including reduced payments, reduced interest rates, mortgage arrearages at the end of the loan, etc....the vast majority end in failure.  However, just because your settlement conference has failed does not mean that you are doomed to lose you house.  If you have income sufficient to pay your house payment and as little as $100.00 left after you pay for your living expenses (living expenses does not include credit card payments) at the end of a month, then you may qualify for a Chapter 13 bankruptcy.  Although the sound of bankruptcy is scary to many people, a Chapter 13 bankruptcy is a method you may be able to use to force your mortgage lender to begin accepting payments from you again and to accept take payments over 3 to 5 years on your mortgage arrearage.  The best part of Chapter 13 is that it does not require approval from your mortgage lender....only approval of the bankruptcy court.

            Most individuals have little knowledge of how a Chapter 13 bankruptcy works and have many misconceptions including that you will lose all of your personal possessions, etc.  If you are at your wits end with your mortgage lender and have gone through an unsuccessful settlement conference Chapter 13 may be able to help you.  If you are a good candidate for a Chapter 13 bankruptcy it is possible to stop the mortgage foreclosure process and the stress that goes along with it and for you to make payments on your home again.  If you live in Indianapolis, Carmel, Fishers, Noblesville, Zionsville, Kokomo, Tipton or the surrounding areas and would like to meet with me for a free initial consultation to better understand Chapter 13 bankruptcy and how it may help you stay in your home please feel free to contact me at 317-575-8222 or click here to fill out our form and our office will contact you.

Halcomb Singler, LLP, is a debt relief agency.  It helps people file for bankruptcy under the bankruptcy code.  No attorney-client relationship with the firm of Halcomb Singler, LLP, is created through this blog. Also, please note that Erika Singler is an attorney licensed in Indiana and does not seek to practice law in any jurisdiction in which they are not properly authorized to do so.  The information contained in this blog is general in nature and should not be relied upon for the circumstances of any individual(s) or businesses.