A select group of banks have banded together to provide a service to homeowners having trouble making their mortgage payments.

They named the program Project Lifeline and it is basically an outreach program for these homeowners.

Apparently the program has always been in place, but now these Banks have joined together to make this program more visible.

No one wants to take back a property, it costs a lot to maintain, and sometimes fix up to resell, if they can even resell it. In the meantime, it would be costing them money, so the best thing for both groups is to help you to stop your home going into foreclosure.

The six banks involved are the biggest mortgage servicers: Countrywide, Wells Fargo, CitiMortgage, Chase Home Finance, Washington Mutual and Bank of America.

Part of the problem is that the borrower once they sense that they are in financial difficulty cease to contact the mortgage holder.

They ignore phone calls and letters. Perhaps by burrowing their head in the sand, they feel that the problem will go away or that it will buy them some time.

What it will buy them is foreclosure.

The banks are just asking that if you are having difficulty meeting your mortgage payments, for whatever reason, that you contact them and they can work with you to get you through your tight spot.

They truly don't want to take your house back.

Having been close to losing my home 9 yrs ago, I know that it would have been nice to know of a program such as this.

Being overwhelmed by debt that is piling up sometimes makes you want to ignore the creditors letters, and the constant phone calls are enough to make you turn off your phone. All the while you are searching for some miracle that will help take the financial burden off you and make everything better.

In my case, when I finally talked to my mortgage holder and explained my situation to them, they were willing to work with me as they did understand that it was a temporary setback and what they did was add the three extra months payments to the end of my mortgage so I wasn't in arrears.

I can't tell you what a relief that was!

I know now that I could have saved myself a lot of stress and anxiety if I had responded sooner to their attempts to contact me.