WAMU is no help (it's long)

[Joel Fraser]

i'm thankful i stumbled across this website but i'm afraid it may be too late for me. We have (had) a fixed rate 30yr mtg at 6.25% with Washington Mutual, it is owned by Fannie Mae. We pay $150/month PMI to AIG and they've never been able to escrow the taxes correctly. We bought our house in 6-04 and found out at the closing table that the loan had been sold to WAMU. Things were fine but in February 2007, my husband lost his job - i work part-time and stay home with our kids - and was out of work for 18 weeks. Anyone who's ever lost a job knows that you don't bounce back from that situation overnight. Things were bad, behind on utilities, car payments etc. I did contact WAMU in April, sent them a letter explaining and then sent the income/expenses sheet they wanted. I was naiive, thought hubby would get a job right away and would just catch up. Of course that didn't happen. In August, WAMU offered a forebearance agreement for September thru December 2007 paying $700/month. At this point, no judgement of foreclosure had been entered. WE live in IL and my husbands job is outside. Harsh winter, no hours equaled low income again. I talked to my now "homeowner assistance" person, Ms. Alexander, who assured me that "we don't want your house, our goal is to do a modification" Then they offered another forebearance agreement, for March thru May 2008 again at $700/month which we signed. Never in my wildest dreams did I believe what would happen. In June 2008 we were asked for paystubs for the last 2 months. We sent those in and a few days later, Ms. Alexander called me at 8 am in the morning to say that "we don't have enough income for them to help us. The only thing they could do for us would be to *increase* our payments $600 per month for 40 years (because she could add another 10 years onto the note) but since we didn't have the income to support it, there's nothing they could do. She asked if there was any other income at all because if we were on food stamps, we could get some help. I was a little shocked because last time we talked she said we were going to do a modification which i thought would lower my payments, not increase them. I really couldn't think about what she was saying. I told her I really needed to talk to my husband and I'd call her back. She said she had to know by the end of the business day. I called my brother-in-law who's a real estate atty and he said what I told him didn't make sense and I should call her back and have her explain things again and get it in writing. Well of course, it took me a week and a half to get in touch with her again on the phone. I found my PMI company which is AIG has their own loss mitigation department but couldn't get anyone to talk to me. I know pmi is there to protect the lender, not me but i was getting desperate. I called Fannie Mae and told them about the $600/40 yr deal and they said it didn't make sense. I had a lot of questions for WAMU and never really got any answers. I finally talked to Ms. Alexander on the phone. I had already received a letter saying my file was closed and going to foreclosure before I ever got a chance to speak with her. Obviously, I have a lot of issues with this but here are a few. Ms. Alexander could never tell me the amount of arrearage I was behind, that was a different department. How then does she come up with a monthly figure of $600? I can't do a short sale because it has to be on the market for 90 days at fair market value. Judgement of foreclosure was just entered finally on 6-30-08 and the redemption period ends October 1, 2008 - not much time for the market. There was $4900 that we paid via forebearance agreements that's in "suspension" that i have no idea what happened to it. Also, according to the court papers, including atty fees, court costs, I am behind roughly $23,000.00 Which for not making a mortgage payment for the last 15 months doesn't seem like a correct figure (payments were roughly $2100) you do the math. Now, i may just be preschool teacher but it seems to me that foreclosing over 23K seems a little overboard Ms. Alexander kept asking me "what did you expect me to do?" Ummm, help me somehow? At one time, we were pretty credit worthy, hence the fixed rate loan. We didn't refi anything, no equity loan. Just a balance of $225,130.06 Per the papers I received today, we owe $248,526.12 which is principal, accrued interest and advances by WAMU, $783 in court costs and $990 in attorney fees. It seems to me that if I had an ARM loan, I could've gotten a little more help. Hindsight is 20/20 and I wish we would've left a year ago. It just seems to me that Ms. Alexander didn't have much of a clue what she was talking about...couldn't tell me how much i was behind, what the total amount due was. I had to call another department if I wanted those figures. I told her that day I was ready to just send in the keys and be done with it. She said I didn't want to do that because that would make things worse but if i wanted to do a short sale, I could call another department to talk about that. So now, i feel like i have no options other than to let them foreclose. Do I keep fighting this or am I done? Any advice what to do from here would be appreciated.