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Real Estate Development | Suburban Initiatives | Foreclosure Prevention & Homeownership | Counseling | Rental Properties
| Senior Homeowner Services | Foreclosure Prevention
 How to Get Help: The first step to achieving a long-term solution to mortgage and home affordability can be through attending one of NOAH's free weekly foreclosure prevention clinics. At no cost, our counselors will work with you to:
- Make an initial assessment of your possible options based on your financial situation; and help you to develop an action plan
- Create a family budget
- Contact lenders to initiate loan negotiations
- Negotiate your mortgage terms with the lender
- Secure legal review of changed terms of the negotiated mortgage
Our goal is to help those facing foreclosure to understand their options and arrive at the best possible solution depending on their own situation. We cannot promise that we will be able to avert foreclosure in all circumstances. However, as a non-profit, community-based organization, we are committed to helping our clients find their best possible option.
Further individual counseling is available once a client has attended one of NOAH's Monday night foreclosure prevention clinics. Our workshops are free; and so is all of our counseling. Our counselors are highly-trained professionals, experienced in mortgage-related counseling. Counseling appointment hours are generally between 11:00 AM and 7:00 PM, Monday through Thursday. Please contact your assigned counselor to schedule an appointment.
NOAH also offers EHLP application processing and counseling. To go directly to information about EHLP, please click here.
When & Where: Two clinics - one in English and one in Spanish - are held every Monday evening at 5:30 PM, except for holidays. The sessions are held at our office on 143 Border Street, East Boston, MA 02128.
What to Bring: When you come to the clinic, please bring your mortgage bill and any recent letters you have recently received from your lender. There is paperwork (below) that would be helpful for you to bring in, also, but this can be completed at the workshop itself. For more information, please contact Carolina at 617-418-8263 or carolina@noahcdc.org.
Watch a Video of Our Workshops: Click here to link directly to NOAH's YouTube video links to watch video presentations discussing loan modifications, foreclosure prevention, and avoiding loan scams. For direct links to specific videos by name, please see the bottom of the page.
Attention Subprime Loan recipients: If you are threatended by foreclosure or were just recently foreclosed on as a result of receiving a subprime mortgage, NOAH offers specialized counseling and possible financial assistance. Please contact Andrea Perez at 617-418-8262 or aperez@noahcdc.org; or click here for additional details.
Foreclosure Prevention or Mitigation and Loan Modification Documents:
Please note that you can use these forms to complete or partially complete the documents, or just to get additional information. Completed forms can either be printed at home to bring them with you; or you can save them and then email them to the NOAH staff prior to attending a Monday workshop.
Forms in English:
Frequently Asked Questions
Introduction to Authorizations
New Intake Application
Budgeting Sheets
NFMC (National Foreclosure Mitigation Counseling) Authorizations
Privacy Policy
Attorney Review (Please read)
Formas en Espanol:
Explicacion de las Formas/Autorizaciones
Forma de Presupuesto (Gastos)
Autorizacions de NFMC (Consegeria Nacional de Preveñcion de Envargo)
Poliza de Privacidad
Revision Legal (Leer Por Favor)
YES. All of NOAH's foreclosure mitigation and loan modification activities are FREE.
We are able to provide this service at no cost thanks to the
generosity of our program
funders including: NFMC and NeighborWorks America,
the United Way of Mass. Bay & Merrimack Valley, the City of Boston Department of Neighborhood Development, the
Mass. Division of Banks, the Mass. Attorney General's Office, MassHousing, the
East Boston
Savings Bank Foundation,
and others.
Q. What is a foreclosure?
A. A foreclosure occurs when a creditor tries to recover the collateral for a home loan that failed to be paid. This means that an individual has most likely borrowed money from a bank or mortgage company so that he or she may buy a home. By asking/signing for a mortgage loan, the person agreed that if he or she could not pay the bank or mortgage company back as per the loan agreement, the creditor could seize the house.
Q. Is the bank allowed to force me out of my house?
A. The bank is not allowed to force you out of your home. An order of the court is the only way in which you can be obligated to leave your home. Eventually, you could be evicted. There are, however, many measures within the court system that the mortgage holder must first take within the foreclosure process, and then another set of procedures for the eviction process.
Q. How long does the foreclosure process usually take?
A. Starting from when an individual misses his/her first payment, to the closing foreclosure sale, it is possible for the procedure to last six months or more, depending on where the person is located. The length of time for the process to take place also very much depends on the individual's mortgage holder and how insistently the holder follows the person's case.
Q. Do I have to move out of my home during the foreclosure process?
A. You don't have to move out of your house during the foreclosure process. Even when the process is complete, ownership of the house is only just shifted from you to the highest bidder in the foreclosure auction. The auction occurs when repossessed property is sold through bidding. The change of ownership is completed at a closing which comes after the foreclosure auction. You then become a tenant in the home that was previously yours, and the new owner of the property is obligated to follow the legal procedures for eviction.
Q. Once the foreclosure process starts is there anything I can do to stop it?
A. Yes, there are many ways in which to stop the foreclosure process. There are over ten different options to choose from to halt the foreclosure process if you begin from your first late payment. If you do not begin to aid the situation right away, many of these opportunities will unfortunately become less and less accessible. Go to our "Get Help" section in order to find out more information on how to deal with the foreclosure process and on how to prevent foreclosures.
Click below to link to NOAH's YouTube videos about preventing foreclosure and the mortgage modification process.
NOAH- Working with NOAH
NOAH- The Foreclosure Process
NOAH- Government Loan Modifications or Making Home Affordable
NOAH- How Lenders Think
NOAH- Avoid Loan Modification Scams
NOAH- Trabajando con NOAH
NOAH- El Proceso del Embargo
NOAH- Como Piensan y Actuan los Bancos
NOAH- Intentos de Fraude
Click here to watch an NECN video concerning foreclosure and the State's, the City of Boston DND's and NOAH's Foreclosure Prevention Workshop in August 2010 and including NOAH Executive Director Phil Giffee speaking about foreclosure and prevention.
To watch a video on the foreclosure-related topics by Fannie Mae, please see the 'Know Your Options' page on their website by clicking here. |
