While millions of people are taking advantage of historic low-interest rates and they're headed to the closing table as fast as they can; millions of others are going from forbearance to foreclosure before they even know what hit them.  Desperate times DO call for desperate measures, but it's a good idea to understand the small print BEFORE you accept the help.  It sounded pretty good, right?  Who wouldn't like a 3-month break on the mortgage payments?  Even people NOT in need of desperate measures took advantage of the opportunity to skip a few payments, that's for sure!  Unfortunately, when things sound too good to be true they usually ARE too good to be true, and now almost 5 million people are about to get a serious reality check they never banked on.

Simply put, forbearance is an agreement between a lender and a mortgagee to skip payments; however, the forbearance landscape is not simple or straightforward and can be treacherous to...