Well, here's a personal story. My mother's house was foreclosed out of blue - no warnings whatsoever. Her house was sold to a new buyer a week later. She was devastated. She contacted an attorney. Three weeks later, she got her house and her bank settled with her and let her pay a few hundreds dollars LESS a month than she originally paid for.
What happened was that she called the bank and wanted to modify her mortgage terms and they agreed to change it. She hasn't gotten the modification back. She waited for two months to get the modified mortgage. She documented everything, from phone calls and in person meetings. She provided documentation to the attorney. The attorney contacted the bank and asked for verification. Her bank admitted that it FAILED to notify her about the revised mortgage and that it did NOT follow the correct procedure. In fact, the bank admitted it still haven't done the revised mortgage thus has NEVER informed her. Because it was clearly the fault of the bank, the bank settled with her before it could go to court.
So, she's happy that she's paying a lot less now.
I also think her job as an estate realtor gave her the edge that most people don't have.
