Deed In Lieu with CitiMortgage

[Joel Fraser]

Hi everyone, I just found zinomortgage.org yesterday and I am already amazed at how useful it has been to me. Here's my story. I bought a condo in 2001. Got divorced in 2002 and had to refi to a 3/1 ARM to afford it since I was down to just my income. Of course come time to refi back to a fixed rate and the value of the condo had dropped $25,000 putting me even on value versus mtg balance. The mtg co refused the deal and every other mtg co I called said refinancing would only make the situation worse (ie put me at negative equity or break me with closing costs). So I put the condo on the market. Got absolutely zero interest-no calls, no showings (I live in Michigan so this is not unusual these days). Took it off the market after 4 months to think about where to go from here. My company seemed to be losing money and my fiance didn't know if he'd have a job day to day so we decided we needed out of Michigan so let's sell the condo & price it so low it'd have to sell and then convince the mtg co to take a short sale. Easy right?!?! Not so fast. Condo's been back up for over 90 days, and again zero interest even though we're practically giving it away. Meanwhile I was reduced to part time and bonuses were eliminated. My now husband is getting no overtime so we need out ASAP. Stopped paying the mortgage in July. Now we're pursuing a deed in lieu. Met with a lawyer yesterday who told me to get the ball rolling, then when I hit the wall, and I will, to call him (rather than pay him $250 an hour to submit paperwork etc for me). I was frustrated, took to the internet and came across zinomortgage. Found the contacts for CitiMortgage and thought what the heck & emailed my hardship letter to every single one of them. In the meantime I faxed over my workable solutions app to the loss mit. dept this morning thinking I'd never get a response from anyone I emailed. The 4 times I tried to talk to my mortgage company- even before I was late-they refused to talk to me until I submitted that. BUT I just got a call from the Executive Response Unit in response to my email from yesterday. They are taking over my account and will be our point person. While this doesn't guarantee success, it is far more progress than I made in my 4 other calls to Citi! So I will keep everyone posted and thank you so much for this great site. Even if I'm not successful at least I feel like I didn't just walk the line & not try everything I could!