By SHANNON BUGGS
HOUSTON CHRONICLE

If you are facing foreclosure, you need to put every cent you can toward your mortgage payment to keep your home.

Don’t put your money in the wrong hands by paying a person or company guaranteeing loan modifications.

The federal government offers free loan-modification services through Web sites, hot lines and housing counselors certified by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Through these programs, you can directly ask a lender to change the interest rate or length of the loan to lower monthly payments. You do not need to pay a middleman to do this for you.

Mortgage finance giant Freddie Mac created a free video at www.youtube.com/FreddieMacWeb to tell you what financial documents you must pull together before calling a mortgage servicer, the company that collects your home loan payments.

The video includes this checklist:

• • Most recent monthly mortgage statement.

• • Most recent statement for homeowners or condominium association fees, if you are obligated to pay those.

• • Most recent pay stubs, W2s and tax return.

• • Profit and loss statements for self-employed homeowners.

• • Statements about other loans secured against the home, including home equity lines of credit or second mortgages.

• • Account balances and statements for other debts including credit cards, car loans and student loans.

• • A short and to-the-point statement about the hardships causing or leading to a mortgage delinquency.

When you have those documents in hand, you are ready to got to Freddie Mac’s free loan-modification Web site at FreddieMac.com/avoidforeclosure.

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