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Foreclosure Hotline Available Saturday
Volunteer lawyers will be assisting homeowners facing foreclosure on Saturday morning.

A dozen lawyers from Attorneys' Title Guaranty Fund will take calls from 9 a.m. to noon on Saturday, for free. The phone number is 800-252-0402. The lawyers will answer questions and dispense advice to callers from Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin.

Lawyer Hank Shulruff says a lot of borrowers facing foreclosure don't know how to respond. Real estate law is arcane, and the borrowers don't know the options available to them, in terms of working out a deal with their creditors, or responding in court to the foreclosure petition.

He says if someone is out of work, a lender might negotiate a deferral. If someone has taken a new, lower-paying job, a lender might agree to different terms that will allow the borrower to get caught up.

Foreclosures are rising as borrowers who face hardships or loans they can't repay are finding that declining housing values are making it impossible to sell and satisfy the balance of the mortgage. Through the first 11 months of last year, foreclosures filed in Illinois totaled 102,643, a 27 percent increase over the same period is 2007 (SOURCE: Realty Trac).

Shulruff says borrowers should have their loan paper work in front of them when they call.

(Illinois Radio Network)
01 09 09 by Newsroom
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