When a homeowner is confronted with a temporary financial hardship, it’s possible that the mortgage lender will allow the owner to skip a couple of monthly mortgage payments, or forgive already missed payments. This is called a forbearance plan.

This isn’t meant as a permanent forgiveness of missed payments. The forbearance plan normally requires the house owner to make up the payments in the future, normally accomplished by making “payment and a half” payments in order to catch up the mortgage after the hardship has passed.

The downside to this option is that it can be hard to qualify for. And those that do qualify often run into problems later on when confronted with the “payment and a half” payments. These can be hard to afford and quite frequently result in further financial problems for the house owner.

If you the house owner want to pursue this option, Utah We Buy Houses can recommend affiliated service providers that specialize in negotiating forbearance plans with lenders. Or, Utah We Buy Houses can buy the house and permanently solve the problem.

Who can qualify for a forbearance?

This can be tough to answer. The lender has to approve the plan so they will want details about the house owners specific circumstances and hardship to determine eligibility.  Missing one or two payments due to a temporary hardship is much easier for a lender to approve. But if the hardship is expected to be long-lasting or permanent, the forbearance likely won’t be approved and wouldn’t do any good, anyway. For long term hard ships, selling the house via a short sale is likely the better option.