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Nationally, foreclosure filings increased 81 percent from 2007 to 2008, according to an article published in the (Durham, NC) Herald-Sun (registration required).

Local economists and the likes of Business Week and CNBC have been telling us that Durham is better positioned economically than most areas to survive the recession because our main industries are higher education and medicine. In line with this thinking, foreclosure filings actually decreased in Durham County from 1,706 in 2007 to 1,678 in 2008.

Those statistics don’t matter, however, if you are facing foreclosure. If you are having trouble meeting your mortgage payments or other bills, here are a few tips:

1. Cut unnecessary expense and trim your spending.
2. Look for additional income (part-time job).
3. Stay in contact with your lender. Make what payments you can and be up front with them about your situation and ability to pay. Then do exactly what you said you would do.
4. Open your mail, even if you can’t pay all your bills. You need to know what is going on. The lender/creditor might have sent you information on programs it has to help folks in your situation.
5. Know your rights. Even though you are behind, you do should not be harrassed, threatend or cursed at. Here is the federal law that governs all debt collections.
6. Be very leery of organizations or companies that say they can re-negotiate your loan, or reduce your interest payments. Unfortunately, many of these companies are not legitimate, and will simply take your money without doing anything.

Tags: debt eliminiation, debt reduction, Durham County, economy, Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, Federal Trade Commission, foreclosure, North Carolina

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 19th, 2009 at 12:46 pm and is filed under Consumer Law, foreclosure. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.