A foreclosure is an option that the home mortgages company uses if you do not pay your monthly mortgage payments over a period of time. You may be thrown out of your home and lose the title to your property.

You may not have selected the proper mortgage company. You may not have used the home mortgage calculator effectively when applying for your home equity loan. The interest only home mortgage loan that you have taken may be too difficult for you to pay. Whether the reasons are valid or not you have entered into an agreement you cannot back out of.

If you are unable to pay the house mortgage due to serious financial difficulty you should seek professional or legal assistance to best protect your investment and your home. You may be able to protect your home but you must act immediately.

Things you need to do

•Search for various options of getting out of debt on the various government related websites. This should help you determine whether your mortgage company is genuine in its efforts to help you.

•Seek legal counsel in case you find any erroneous clauses in your terms with the mortgage company.

•If all the parts of your home mortgage agreement seem good then you either visit the nearby office or call the office of the mortgage lender. It is when the mortgage company or mortgage banks do not hear from you they feel justified in pursuing foreclosure.

•Discuss your problem honestly in detail. In order to help you the lender needs complete information. You could thus save your credit record and loss of home as well.

•In case of foreclosure you would be under bad credit report and no one else would be willing to lend to you then. Therefore the earlier contact your mortgage lender the better.

What the Mortgage lender could do?

•He could give you various options of debt counseling. Either in restructuring your spending plan or restructuring your mortgage payment plans.

•Forbearance is an agreement that temporarily allows you to pay less than the full amount on your mortgage payment or even pay nothing at all during the forbearance period. This is easier if you show the availability of funds at a later period due to a tax refund or bonus or any other source.

•Once the forbearance is granted you need a reinstatement. This is an agreement that you would pay the combined amount in lump sum by a specific date. Forbearance and reinstatement usually go together.

•Refinance home mortgage with a repayment plan. It will give you some time to combine the amount you have not paid with later amounts you are due on a monthly basis.

•Loan modification is also possible where the conditions of agreement between you and the mortgage company can be re-written to make your payments more affordable. It can be worked out as adding missed payments to the existing loan balance. Making an adjustable rate mortgage to a fixed rate mortgage. It can even be extending the number of years you have to repay the loan.

What else you could do?

•Contact a non-profit housing credit agency for counseling. They can help you analyze your financial situation and organize a budget to pay your mortgage and other monthly expenses. They can also help you take advantage of other services that provide short term financial assistance and even legal, medical or other support. You could search for the US department of Housing and urban development (HUD) or look up for a list of HUD approved agencies on their website(http://www.hud.gov/offices/hsg/sfh/hcc/hccprof14.cfm)

•Look up a few charitable organization or public help groups that could help you with the payment of a month or two so that you can catch up with the other payments.

•You could search for loans with lesser rates of interest to pay off the existing debt entirely. But beware of scams that would require you to sign the ownership of your house for the sake of another loan