If you are behind on your mortgage one area of relief can come what may seem to be a strange place: your current mortgage lender. Yes, contrary to what you may think, your mortgage lender is your best friend when it comes to paying off your mortgage. Read on and you'll soon learn how to work this relationship to your advantage.

When you took out a home loan to finance your home purchase, likely you did not anticipate falling behind on payments even to the point of possibly losing your home to foreclosure. Well, neither did your mortgage lender. A lost job, economic misfortune, a blunder on your part, medical bills, or a host of other expenses could be intruding into your life making it difficult, if not impossible to escape the mortgage mess.

Your lender has every right to foreclose on your home especially if you haven't been in contact with them and you are several months behind on your payments. However, this is a move of last resort for them as they stand to lose thousands of dollars in a foreclosure. This is especially true because:

--Foreclosure proceedings costs several thousand dollars to bring to pass. Court dates, filing fees, attorney consultations all must be added in.

--Once the foreclosure has been accomplished, your mortgage company must then manage the home until it is sold. Administrative costs, maintenance, repairs, and payment of back taxes as well as the right off of bad debt can add thousands to that total.

--In a soft market, your lender could end up selling the house below its market value. Otherwise, the longer the home sits in their portfolio the more that it will cost them over the long run.

Clearly, your mortgage lender has much to lose perhaps even more than what you could lose!

Keeping this in mind, if you are behind on payments, contact your mortgage lender and tell them:

--You are in desperate financial straits but you desire to make good on your loan.

--Ask for the mortgage company to renegotiate the terms of your loan, lower the interest rate, or tack on the outstanding payments to the end of your loan.

A mortgage company would be receptive to your proposal if you have a job and a way to make future payments. Regardless, in a soft market look for more cooperation from a lender than in a hot market where you likely will be abandoned straight away.