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Rejected By Chase For A HAFA Short Sale Due to Unemployment.

By
Real Estate Agent with United Brokers Group/Carver Home Team

I have a seller that's been waiting 90 days to find out from Chase if they qualify for HAFA. Things were looking relatively good and then our seller lost his job. Not a good time for these people, especially since it's right before Christmas. If that wasn't enough....

Chase phoned within a week of our client losing his job saying our client had been declined for HAFA because he was unemployed. This was a first for us. We're very familiar with the guidelines and unemployment definitely isn't listed as a reason to be declined for HAFA on the information we've received.

We phoned the HAFA hotline, and "they didn't know if that was within the guidelines." Fairly disgusting when the organization administering the plan doesn't know what their own guidelines are.... They recommended we call the FTC for information. No comment on the latter.

Here's what we're doing:

We're contacting a local HAFA counselor and some other contacts we have at Chase to determine the legitimate guidelines.

Contacting Chase and invoking the guidelines that allow the seller to have their foreclosure date pushed out.

Once we have the guidelines verified, we'll either proceed with getting the HAFA rejection remedied or proceed with a traditional short sale.

We'll share back, but in the meantime I'd be interested to hear from any members who have had clients rejected for HAFA due to unemployment.

Cindy Jones
Integrity Real Estate Group - Woodbridge, VA
Pentagon, Fort Belvoir & Quantico Real Estate News

The lenders make stuff up as they go along.  You can get one answer one week and a totally different one the following week.

Dec 13, 2010 10:55 AM
Rodney Mason, VP of Mtg Lending
Guaranteed Rate NMLS# 2611 - Atlanta, GA
AL,AR,AZ,CA,CO,FL,GA,IN,MI,MS,NC,NV,SC,TN,TX,VA,WA

Without a job, the owner is not going to be able to document sufficient income to be able tomaintain a mortgage payment.  You would be hard pressed to find a lender willing to do a modificaiton.  With a modification, the owner must still demostrate their abilty to repay the mortgage at the new monthly payment.

Dec 13, 2010 12:54 PM
Dean Carver
United Brokers Group/Carver Home Team - Ahwatukee, AZ

Hi, just to clarify this is for a HAFA short sale. This isn't a loan mod/HAMP.

Cindy, we too are finding that there are the "rules" and then there are the "rules." Things do change from one week to the next.

Dec 14, 2010 08:02 AM
Steve Baklaich
RE/MAX Results St Cloud Mn real estate - Saint Cloud, MN
Treating Buyers & Sellers to Full Service Always.

I haven't run into this issue, but similar contradictions within the Bank. Person A says one thing, and Person B says the opposite. And Chase is pretty wierd! Unemployed is considered a hardship.

Dec 14, 2010 09:04 AM
Dean Carver
United Brokers Group/Carver Home Team - Ahwatukee, AZ

Update: the rep from Chase told us that HAFA is a joke (no joke). "Freddie backs the loan and doesn't like to output the $3000." In addition, lenders can overlay their own list of requirements over the federal guidelines.

Sounds like "participation" on the part of the lenders is smoke and mirrors in many cases.

Regardless, we're moving on and received an offer on the house that we will negotiate as a traditional short sale.

 

Dec 23, 2010 08:48 AM