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CCO Mortgage (also known as Citizens Bank) provides a number of loan modification programs to help borrowers stop foreclosure and lower their payments. Additionally, Citizens Bank now participates in President Obama’s Making Home Affordable Program.
Regardless of whether or not you are current on your mortgage, if Citizens Bank is your lender, we most likely can qualify you for a loan modification. Actually, if you are behind on your mortgage, this may create even more of an incentive for Citizens Bank to modify your loan. If you are on time, getting a loan modification is still possible, and modifying now can avoid irrevocable damage to your credit.
How can this help you? Well, a loan modification can help you decrease your interest rate, payment, and possibly even the principal balance of the loan. An aggressive loan modification can help you keep your house, and in the process lower your payment by hundreds if not thousands of dollars.
Let’s take a look at what exactly a loan modification is: A loan modification is an agreement between you (the borrower) and your lender (Citizens Bank) to lower your mortgage payments to an affordable level to help you avoid foreclosure. Citizens Bank has faced significant financial setbacks over the last two years due to the high number of foreclosures, and, as such is willing to work with qualified homeowners to lower their monthly payments and help them keep their homes.
When applying for a loan modification with Citizens Bank / CCO Mortgage, it’s important to remember that the primary basis of whether or not you will be approved for a loan modification is based on whether or not you are facing what Citizens will look at as an “acceptable financial hardship”.
Citizen’s Bank and CCO Mortgage’s loss mitigation guidelines cover a number of acceptable financial hardships, here are a few of the more common ones: Decrease in income, job loss, unemployment, adjustment of an ARM (Adjustable Rate Mortgage), any increase in mortgage payment, death in the family, illness, disability, child birth, excessive credit card debt, decrease in assets, and increases in other household expenses.
As previously stated, Citizens Bank now participates in the Making Home Affordable Program, meaning that it’s conceivable to get an interest rate as low as 2% on a 30 year fixed loan through an aggressive loan modification. For more information on the Making Home Affordable Program, check out these HAMP Guidelines.
If your mortgage is currently held by Citizens Bank, it may be in your best interest to take a look at a loan modification as you are most likely paying more than you have to on your mortgage.
Items You Will Need When Applying for a Loan Modification
When applying for a loan modification with Citizens Bank, you will need to document your income, assets, and expenses. Here’s a quick list of what you will need:
- Last 2 Years W-2’s
- 2 Yrs. Tax Returns
- 2 Months Paystubs
- 3 Month Bank Statements
- Copy of Latest Mortgage Statement
Please note that Citizens Bank may ask for additional supporting documentation when reviewing your loan modification package.
What to do When You Call Citizens Bank
You can reach the Citizens Bank Loss Mitigation Department directly at (800) 234-6002. Now, as with most lenders Citizens Bank has two different departments that field calls on delinquent loans and how homeowners are treated and the help they receive varies base upon which department of Citizens they have reached!
The first department of Citizens Bank that speaks to delinquent homeowners typically is their collection’s department, who will try to get the homeowner to catch up by immediately paying back the amount they are late on, including the legal and late fees that Citizens Bank assesses.
The second department at Citizens consists of loss mitigation specialists and negotiators. Modification Zoom has significant experience working with lender loss mitigation departments and getting the best loan modifications for our clients. If you believe you need help getting a loan modification from Citizens Bank / CCO Mortgage, complete the form to the right, or apply here.
Often, homeowners contact us after they have presented financial information to their lender that makes it impossible for them to get a loan modification. If you do not have years of loss mitigation experience, the time to learn is not on your own foreclosure.
Modification Zoom can help get a loan modification from Citizens Bank / CCO Mortgage that will put you in a much better financial situation. Complete a form on any page of this website, and we will contact you immediately. The consultation is quick, absolutely risk free, and completely confidential. Take the first step today!
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I think that it’s great to see yet another big bank willing to help out homeowners under the Making Home Affordable program, but from what I understand, this program is doing little if anything to help the large majority of homeowners facing foreclosure. Is this what you’ve heard too?
Derek Mayfield´s last blog ..HomeBuyer Savings?
They have not been so willing in my opinion. I have been contacting them for a year and a half trying to get them to help me because I was foreseeing foreclosure in my future. I have sent emails (4 total) since Aug. 08. I have received NO response at all. I have called about 4 times and they transfer me 3-4 times then put me through to someone’s voicemail and you guessed it, they never return the call.
Over 50% of those who apllied and received help defaulted within 6 months.
We are in danger of losing our home!
Here’s a letter we’ve finally written to our Congressman, Bill Owens, corporate officers of Royal Bank of Scotland Group (the parent company), corporate officers of CCO Mortgage, and others regarding our experience with CCO Mortgage.
I urge anyone reading this to be very cautious about getting involved with CCO Mortgage.
Dear Sir or Madam,
I’m a psychotherapist in the Malone, NY area. My wife and I are having financial difficulties during this time, as so many are.
We applied for a modification of our mortgage with CCO Mortgage in January of this year. We don’t understand what is happening but fear we are getting some kind of run around that may cost us our home.
We have faithfully filled out every form, submitted every financial document, and answered every question that CCO has asked of us. But we are told week after week that the person we need to talk to, Tina, is not in the office—and to call back the following week.
This has been going on for approaching 6 months. On May 28, we received a letter from CCO statimng, “YOU COULD LOSE YOUR HOME,” demanding a payment of $1,915.27 before June 27, 2010. We have no hope of pulling this amount together by that date.
Naturally we were very concerned and called CCO. The gentleman who took our call indicated the letter was just a “legal formality” and that our house was not scheduled for sale “at this time, so not to worry.”
I stated that I believed the letter gave CCO the right to seize our house, which didn’t seem right as we have been trying to arrange for a modification for nearly 6 months—and that it was being held up by CCO itself.
We were again told that the application was simply awaiting approval, but again the woman we were supposed to talk with, Tina, was not available this week—we should try calling again on next Monday.
I objected saying I couldn’t understand how this situation has gone on for so many months and asked to talk with a supervisor. I was told that I couldn’t, but that the person taking the call would pass on my request to the supervisor, who may or may not respond.
We are beginning to fear that there is some deadline that we are not aware of for the Loan Modification program and that CCO is stalling us until it is too late—or perhaps racking up fees and interest to increase their profit or something similar.
Is there anything we can do to get some help from your office? I could be wrong, but this sure seems like some type of predatory practice on the part of CCO Mortgage. There have been many similar complaints posted about CCO Mortgage: http://www.viewpoints.com/CCO-Mortgage-reviews .
I am also contacting the Better Business Bureau and the Franklin County Community Housing Council to seek their assistance.
Thank you,
John M. Knapp, LMSW