I need to write a letter to a mortgage company about negative items on credit report. HELP! What do they want?

Question

If I write an explaination, should it be in detail or short and to the point?

Answer 1

They want you to be honest about why you have negative items on your credit.
They want to find out if you are at risk of not paying back the mortgage.
If you convince them you are a worthy risk, then you'll get more favorable terms (better interest rate, etc.). If you don't, they'll likely still offer you the credit but you may not be able to afford the rate and terms.
Luckily, the older the negative information, the better it is for you.
And, in some states, depending on the type of information, they may not be able to count it against you at all.
For example, in my state, certain 'extenuating life circumstances' like loss of job or death of a spouse can't count against you if they were the reason for the lack of repayment of an obligation.

Answer 2

The letter will not make or break the loan, but let me be honest and say the more tragic, and promising the incident was isolated is the best way to approach the request.
SOME REAL EXAMPLES
1) kids on drugs who stole our money,,,,,,,they are now in jail doing time so it wont happen again.

2)I worked in a psychiatric ward as a nurse, and was pushed out a plate glass window by a crazy patient.

3)My payments were late because I didn't have the money, if I don't get this money it will be your fault I am late again.

Now as you can see #1 is OK because if your thieving kids are locked up for a bit you may do OK until they are paroled, #2 was so sad half my office was crying because the woman included her lawsuit, and pictures from while she was in the hospital, and #3 I believe found his file at the bottom of every stack of files, a hundred new conditions, and we reran his credit to make sure he paid his bills during the process of his loan. The letter is just a formality, and it is only requested to weed out the idiots like example #3. Most mortgage brokers are aware some borrowers are not smart enough to realize the bank does not have to lend anyone money, so they will write the letter for the borrower to sign

Answer 3

If you have negative items and they are all around the same time they would like an explanation of what happened at that time such as was it a job loss sickness or a loss of some sort that made you late.

Answer 4

they just want an explanation as to why you were late on some of your payments. Don't write I didn't pay because I didn't have the money. On one letter I wrote that I thought my husband had paid the bill, he thought I had, and when we realized it, it was past the due date. They need to know WHY. I had to do this.