How Modifying Your Home Loan Can Hurt Your Credit Rating
With the impending threat of foreclosure, many borrowers are entirely grateful and willing to accept a modification on their home loan agreement. This will typically involve an extension of the loan period, reducing monthly mortgage payments; a reduction in the interest rate; a decrease in the principle amount on the loan or a composite of all these methods. This is initially considered an unquestionably advantageous offer, however acquiring such an alteration to any home loan payment may be detrimental to one’s credit rating, a fact which many people are now recognizing.
It will affect your credit rating simply because your credit score will acknowledge this decrease in payment negatively. This occurs because the new payments will be reported as a settlement or renegotiation of the loan terms, which is then construed as an inability to make the original payments. Hence the borrower’s inability to pay the original amount is not viewed favourably and signals an inconsistency during a credit check. The credit score is formulated to help future lenders make decisions about lending to prospective borrowers. Therefore it is regarded as vital that this information which displays the borrower’s inability to maintain the original terms of a loan be reflected in the credit score. This lowered credit score in turn decreases one’s overall credit rating.
The program typically begins with a three month trial period in which the borrower will make the decreased payments before being completely approved for the loan modification. These reduced payments being lower than the normal mortgage are sometimes reported as late payments. If a person was delinquent when making payments before the modification trial period then the payments will continue to be reported as late.
This sad reality has already affected many people who have opted to take these loans. Though the creditors originally claim that this modification would not affect their credit rating, many people subsequently realized a noticeable decrease in their credit rating. In the article Modifying loans creates credit mess, not relief By Brent Hunsberger, The Oregonian, the story of Howard Spindel is told ultimately shedding light on how modifying a mortgage can lead to disaster:
The first whiff Spindel got that something was wrong came in a June 18 letter from Bank of America. His credit limit on a credit card was being cut to a laughable $500. The reason: “a major derogatory record” in his credit report.” A month later, Discover canceled his card because of inactivity and “delinquent credit obligations.”.

