To arrange for the refinancing of a home mortgage the first thing you are going to need is patience. It certainly isn't going to happen over night and if you feel you are facing foreclosure then you are going to feel pretty frustrated.

This is perfectly understandable but you need to take a deep breath and then start to take reasonable and rational action. But you will be glad to hear that there is help available if you are struggling to make your mortgage payments or if you are facing foreclosure. This is either through the Making Home Affordable Program or by contacting your current lender.

The first thing you will need to do is gather together the information your lender will need to ease the process.

• You will need your most recent tax return


• You will also need your most recent pay stubs


• You need a copy of your monthly mortgage statements for all the mortgages you have if you have more than one


• You will also need to explain why you are in a situation of hardship with a letter i.e. why you are struggling to meet your payments

To release your most recent tax return you will probably have to fill in a form 4506T-EZFORM so that the revenue services can release the information to your lender.

Make copies of all the documents so that you when you submit them all to your lender, you can keep the originals in case any of the documents get lost and need to be replaced. It can happen so make sure you have it covered.

Once you have all the documents together, you can contact the lender and request a 'request for modification affidavit'. If you don't know the name and address of your lender you should be able to find it on your monthly statements or your coupon.

Then you need to complete the affidavit and send it in with all the copies of the required documentation, remembering to keep the originals and requesting receipts for everything. Also make sure every document is marked with your loan number and name so that there is a point of reference should any document get separated from the main pack. That way if it does there is a chance that it can be returned to the file when found.

Knowing when you sent in information is extremely useful when you need to make a progress enquiry, so keep a record of everything you send it and when, whether that is using emails or hard copy. Ask your lender when you can expect a response and if you don't hear back in that time frame get back in touch to see what the status is. But do it in a calm and rational way, losing your cool is likely to have the opposite to the desired affect so you need to be rational.

The other thing you need to be aware of is avoiding scams, if you are trying to refinance your home mortgage and someone tells you that you need to pay for advice then walk away. A certified HUD approved housing counselor or agency provides help and advice on this process for free.

You can find more information about refinancing a home mortgage and the eligibility criteria via this link.

If you think you need to find a different lender to help with refinancing your home mortgage you can find some suggestions for doing that using this link, but your starting point is your current lender.