The Short Sale Hardship Letter
We are with Century 21 Beachside and are Platinum Short Sale Certified and Pre Foreclosure Specialists for the Southern California area and have extensive training and experience with short sales.
The purpose of the hardship letter is to tell the servicer “your story” of why you have missed
payments and why you will not be able to make them in the future.
Sellers must have experienced some type of hardship that can justify their delinquency. The three main acceptable hardship cases are called the three M’s…Medical hardship, Marital hardship, and Money or job related hardship.
Hardship, however, may be less drastic depending on the financial position of the servicer and
their leverage in the transaction. For example, a servicer may approve high gas prices as a
hardship if the servicer feels that accepting the short sale is their best option. Many times, it’s
all about the bottom line for the servicers.
Your short sale package is going to be reviewed by a living, breathing, and feeling person. The
document that will tie your short sale package together is the hardship letter. You will want to give them a hardship letter that has life and emotion.
The letter should include three basic elements:
An apology – I am sorry to be asking you to discount the amount owed.
A story – An outline of the circumstances that have led to the borrower’s inability to
stay current on their mortgage
A statement – A clear, unequivocal message that the borrower has exhausted all
options, and if the short sale is not approved, foreclosure is the next step
Important – Attach to the hardship letter any documents, receipts or notices that support the
hardship.
Examples: Layoff notice, Health insurance cancellation, Auto loan repossession warning, Divorce decree or, separation papers, Letter from doctor, Disability notice
SAMPLE HARDSHIP LETTER
Servicer Name:
Loss Mitigation Dept.
Servicer Address:
Re: Hardship Letter for (insert property address)
Loan Numbers:
Dear Loss Mitigator:
I am writing this letter to ask you for assistance and help regarding my loan(s) and for the
need to do a “short sale” on my current property.
When I bought this home, I had great expectations and felt that it would be our home for
the rest of our lives. Unfortunately, the job that I had when I purchased this home was
eliminated due to a cutback at my company and I found myself out of a job. I am 65
years old and the prospect of getting a new job at my age is very unlikely. It has come to
the point where my wife and I have made the difficult decision to move in with my son,
and, unfortunately, we will be depending on him to help make ends meet. This is not how
we pictured our remaining years.
This has been very hard on my wife and me. After losing my job, I knew that I would not be
able to continue making house payments and started looking into selling our home.
Unfortunately, the real estate market has fallen and so, too, has the price of our home.
After going through all the options, a “short sale” is our only solution. I will need your help to
make this happen. We have been fortunate in finding a buyer, however, with the prices
continuing to drop, I am afraid this buyer will start looking elsewhere and we will have to start
all over again. If there is anything you can do to help me close this sale as soon as possible, my
wife and I would be eternally grateful.
Thank you for your help and understanding during this very stressful time,
Homeowner’s Name
If you are in a position where you are considering a short sale, we can help. Our Platinum Short Sale and Pre Foreclosure Specialist designations gives us the training and tools necessary to know how to write an appropriate hardship letter. And because of our experience in the industry, we are the right choice to navigate you through the process.
Here is a link to some other resources that can help with your short sale questions: Short Sale Resource Center
Or you can fill out the simple form below to get a FREE short sale analysis. We understand that selling your home is a very private matter and we promise to protect your online privacy.
Posted In HomeTalk News, Real Estate News
This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 11th, 2010 at 3:05 pm and is filed under HomeTalk News, Real Estate News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.