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CDA Law Center Saved our Life and our Home
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A few months ago my wife and I found ourselves at wits end with no hope in sight. The value of our dream home took a huge dive in 2008 along with everyone else's home values. We were $200 under water and couldn't see when we would ever get back our original
investment on the home. To make matters even more desperate I lost my 8 year job and our household income plummeted by 60%. Now losing our home was a looming certainty because the $3,000+ mortgage payments were not going be possible for much longer. Running
out of options was a reality for us. We burned through our savings and most of our 401K to keep our payments current and even after several attempts to negotiate with Bank of America we came up empty. There was no convincing them to give us a chance. After
almost a year of being degraded by uncaring bank employees (always a different one) we decided staying current was not going to be an option. Just before giving up we heard about CDA Law Center from a co-worker who had successfully used them to modify their
upside down mortgage. So we decided it couldn't heart to call and see if CDA could help us. Wanting to avoid the myriad of scams we heard about, my wife and I spent the first 2 hours on the Phone with Ray Ghamsari asking questions about the process and about
our chances to succeed in getting a modification. Ray was very informative but was unable to give us a guarantee that he could successfully get us modified but he was confident that once we started the process we would know before we spent the money if we
had a good chance of success. I later found out that no one can guarantee success but there are methods of determining if you have a good chance or not. Ray had us first fill out what he called a REST report form (the best $800 we ever spent). This report
is used by lenders to determine if a borrower is in that sweet spot where they don't have enough to pay their current mortgage but do have enough income to pay a modified mortgage. When we received the results of the REST report we were thrilled to find that
we fit into the "likely to get modified" category. This is where the real work behind the scenes got started. After we learned that we would likely be successful we put our trust and some hard earned money on the line with CDA Law Center. Once we made the
decision to go forward with the modification, CDA sprung into action. We were immediately assigned to Christine Nicholls, one of the CDA Attorneys. Christine was very knowledgeable, confident and very quick to respond to any questions or concerns. Over the
several months of negotiating and posturing with Bank of America, Ray and Christine kept us informed and answered any questions that we had. There were times when we got discouraged because of the time it seemed to be taking but both Ray and Christine indicated
that in order to get it done, we had to go through a process that took time. We could always count on Ray to keep us focused on the end result. What really made us nervous though, was that we were not able to pay the mortgage during this time and we knew that
if the modification was not successful that we would owe even more in late charges and penalties. Fortunately Ray and Christine both assured us that in order to get Bank of America to take the modification seriously we had to be behind in the payments. This
was just part of the process and could not be avoided. Finally after what seemed like an eternity we received confirmation that B of A was offering a trial modification and that if we paid on time for 3 months, the modification would be permanent. To our surprise
after another week went by, we receive notice that our second mortgage was going to be modified as well after 3 payments. What a shock; it was like a two for one deal. After paying both mortgages for 3 months we were notified that the modifications were permanent
and we were out of the woods on our First and Second mortgage. The payments actually ended up being even lower than CDA was hoping for and our 3.25% adjustable loan with payments of $3,177 per month became a 2% fixed rate loan with payments of only $2345 including
taxes and insurance! The second mortgage went from 4.25% adjustable interest only to 2% fixed for 30 years. What a relief it was to finally arrive at this new payment. Because of CDA Law Center and the help of Ray, Christine and others at CDA my wife and I
can afford to stay in our home for the long term and not risk losing all of our initial home purchase equity. I can't tell you how thankful we are to have been introduced to Ray and the team of Attorneys at this great firm, we have already referred other friends
to Ray and will not hesitate to refer anyone who needs their assistance. It was worth the time, frustration and cost to be in the place we are today.
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