Chase Will Offer Mortgage Aid to Unemployed Michigan Borrowers

""Chase"":https://www.chase.com/ announced this week that it plans to participate in Michigan's Hardest Hit Fund program in order to help Michigan borrowers who are receiving unemployment benefits.

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""The Michigan State Housing Development Authority"":http://www.michigan.gov/mshda (MSHDA) designed this program to help homeowners continue to make mortgage payments on their homes even after they have lost their jobs.

Chase will partner with MSHDA to make the program available to its customers. The program will pay up to half of qualified borrowers' monthly mortgage payments for up to 12 months on their primary residence.

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Customers need not be behind on their mortgage payments to qualify for this program and can see savings of up to 9,000.

""We're pleased to offer one more way to help Michigan homeowners who are struggling with their payments,"" said Sarah McClelland, president of Chase in Michigan. ""We'd been working closely with MSHDA on the details so this will work smoothly for homeowners.

Under this program, when a homeowner calls Chase, a counselor will determine eligibility and then send an application package to the homeowner. Chaser will check the documents and forward them to MSHDA once the homeowner returns them by fax or overnight delivery.

If the application receives full approval by the 15th of the month, the borrowers will get the benefit the next month, and will be instructed to send their portion of the mortgage payment to the state, which will pay the remaining portion and send the full payment to Chase.

Already in place are Chases' face-to-face loan counseling centers in Detroit and Troy, which have sent counselors to 36 local outreach events, met with more than 140,000 borrowers and have offered nearly one million mortgage modifications to struggling homeowners across the country since the beginning of 2009.