Thousands of borrowers are losing trial loan modification agreements that were installed recently under the HAMP prrogram. The total of distressed homeowners who drop out of President Obama’s loan modification plan soared in April.  According to federal loan modification statistics released last week, over 122,000 homeowners had their trial mortgage loan modification agreement canceled in April, bringing the total to 277,640 since the HAMP program began about a year ago.

Meanwhile, only 68,000 homeowners were converted from the trial modification phase to a permanent loan modification last month.  Under the program, known as HAMP, eligible troubled borrowers are put into trial home loan modifications to determine whether they can keep up with the reduced mortgage payments and to give loan servicers time to verify income and hardship.  A total of 295,348 people have received permanent long-term help under the loan modification plan, but another 3,744 who were converted to permanent status were later cut from the program anyway.  Mortgage refinancing has not been an option for millions of homeowners who have inadequate credit scores or mortgages that are buried under-water with home values less than the mortgage balance.

The latest modification report does not include home equity loan modification details.  Many industry insiders believe the second mortgage foreclosures and defaults could be stemmed if home equity servicers came up with a good modification plan for home equity credit and second mortgage loans.  Many homeowners have used the loan modification to stop the foreclosure proceedings.

In most cases, loan modification agreements are usually canceled if the borrower fails to make the adjusted payments, or if during the trial period, does not meet the program’s criteria or hand in the required income verification paperwork.  Obama admin officials said they were not surprised to see the number of canceled trial mortgage modifications rise because borrowers had been allowed to enroll in the trial program by simply stating their income. Many homeowners are being dropped from HAMP if they cannot prove the income figures they originally provided.  “As those decisions get made, it’s certainly expected that there would be some that fall out of HAMP,” said Phyllis Caldwell, chief of Treasury’s Homeownership Preservation Office.  So far, some 24.6% of trial loan modification options have become permanent, up from 19.8% a month ago.  Some 637,353 troubled borrowers remain in trial mortgage loan modifications, officials said. The pace of people entering the program has slowed as servicers begin implementing new requirements to collect documents at the outset. Read the original article at CNNMoney.com.

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