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Mortgage deferments could expire soon

To help Americans face the financial challenges from the pandemic, things such as forbearances on home loans were enacted as part of the CARES act.

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — When the pandemic began banks across the nation offered forbearance to those who needed more time paying their mortgage or rent.

It's been almost a year now and many are waiting to see if that will be extended. 3News spoke with a mortgage lender to find out more.

To help Americans face the financial challenges from the pandemic, things such as forbearances on home loans were enacted as part of the CARES act. This allowed for people to put their home and rent payments on deferment, initially for six months.

“The CARES act when it was enacted in March 27, 2020, and what it gave for mortgage relief was six months of forbearance or deferment. The key with this is it’s federally backed or sponsored entity,” said Mortgage Lender Jason Pitarra. “Then you had another six months that you could extend it.”

So, that is a total of 12 months of deferment, which means that program could be coming to an end soon.

“It's not avoiding the payments altogether, the taxes and the insurance still, still incur every month that you miss,” said Pitarra.

Pitarra says if the government doesn't announce an extension to the forbearance period many people will be stuck with very few options to pay back the accumulated payments.

“We don't know what's going to happen,” said Pitarra.  “I guess they're gonna follow suit, but we don't know that for sure. So, I’m sure they're getting ahead of it, or trying to catch up with it.”

Pitarra says with the month of March approaching, there's still much uncertainty on what will be decided.  In the meantime, he advises the people who did take advantage of forbearance, to contact their bank and get ahead of the options now.

“Ask them what the options are, and more importantly ask what the repayment options are going to be,” said Pitarra.

For the latest updates on coronavirus in the Coastal Bend, click here.

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