You can pause your mortgage payments through a program called forbearance by contacting your loan servicer and showing that a financial hardship is keeping you from paying. Every major federally backed loan program still offers forbearance as a loss mitigation option, and private lenders generally offer something similar on their own terms. The pause is not forgiveness: you still owe the money, and you and your servicer agree later on how to catch it up.
What Counts as a Hardship
To qualify, you need to show your servicer that something is preventing you from making your monthly payment. The common qualifying situations include job loss, a significant drop in income, major medical expenses, divorce, or the death of a co-borrower. For federally backed loans the bar is relatively low: you describe your hardship and the servicer evaluates you for available relief. Private lenders tend to want more documentation tying the hardship directly to your inability to pay.
If the borrower on the mortgage died and you inherited the home, you can step into the borrower’s shoes. The CFPB has clarified that servicers must have procedures to identify and work with surviving family members who have a legal interest in the property, and adding an heir as a borrower does not trigger ability-to-repay rules that would otherwise block them from help.1Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. CFPB Clarifies Mortgage Lending Rules to Assist Surviving Family Members
Find Out Who Backs Your Loan First
Before you call, figure out who owns or insures your mortgage. The answer determines which protections you’re entitled to and which rules your servicer must follow.
Federally backed loans are those insured by FHA, guaranteed by the VA or USDA, or owned or securitized by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. Each program maintains its own forbearance framework with specific duration limits and repayment options. Private or portfolio loans, meaning loans not backed by any federal agency or government-sponsored enterprise, don’t carry the same mandated protections. Those lenders set their own terms based on internal guidelines and investor agreements. Many mirror federal standards, but they have full discretion over whether to offer relief, how long it runs, and what repayment looks like afterward. If your loan is privately held, read your mortgage contract and ask your servicer directly what’s available.
One rule applies to nearly all servicers regardless of loan type: Regulation X. Once you submit a loss mitigation application at least 45 days before a scheduled foreclosure sale, your servicer must acknowledge receipt within five business days and tell you whether the application is complete or what’s missing. After the application is complete, the servicer has 30 days to evaluate you for every available option and send you a written determination.2eCFR. 12 CFR 1024.41 – Loss Mitigation Procedures Your servicer must also assign specific personnel to your case no later than 45 days into delinquency, and that contact must be reachable by phone and able to give you accurate information about your options and deadlines.3eCFR. 12 CFR 1024.40 – Continuity of Contact
How Long the Pause Can Last
Duration depends on your loan type.
- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac loans: Up to six months initially, with a possible six-month extension, for a cumulative maximum of 12 months. Anything beyond 12 months requires written approval from Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac.4Fannie Mae. Forbearance Plan
- FHA loans: A temporary pause or reduction of payments while you work through the hardship, with your servicer then working with you on a repayment solution.5U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). FHA’s Loss Mitigation Program
- VA loans: “Special forbearance” that gives extra time to repay missed payments. The VA assigns a loan technician to any VA-guaranteed loan 61 days past due to walk through your options.6Veterans Affairs. VA Help To Avoid Foreclosure
- USDA loans: Servicers are directed to work with borrowers on repayment plans or term extensions that defer missed payments to the end of the loan, and they cannot require a lump sum at the end of forbearance.
Your servicer can give you the total period in shorter increments rather than all at once. You might get three months initially and then request an extension if the hardship continues. Don’t wait until the last day; contact your servicer well before the period expires.
How to Request Forbearance
Gather these documents before you call or log in:
- Your loan account number, found on your monthly mortgage statement or original closing documents.
- Proof of the hardship: recent pay stubs showing reduced income, a termination notice, medical bills, or whatever documents the triggering event.
- The last two to three months of checking and savings account statements, which most servicers want to see.7Wells Fargo. Homeowner Assistance Documents
- A short hardship letter explaining what happened, when it started, and how long you expect it to last.
If you’re self-employed, pay stubs won’t work. You’ll typically need your most recent quarterly or year-to-date profit and loss statement along with your most recent tax return. USDA guidelines require this financial information to be dated within 90 days of submission, and other servicers tend to want something similar.8USDA Rural Development. The Loss Mitigation Guide – Income Verification Requirements
Most servicers have online portals where you can upload documents into a secure system. You can also call, and many have automated phone systems that start the hardship request for you. Mailing a paper application to the loss mitigation address is a third option and the slowest. Many servicers post a specific forbearance or mortgage assistance form on their website.7Wells Fargo. Homeowner Assistance Documents Cross-reference your records as you fill it out: mismatches between your stated income and your bank statements slow the review.
Once your complete application is in, expect the five-business-day acknowledgment and then a written determination within 30 days.
How Paused Payments Get Repaid
Forbearance doesn’t erase what you owe. When the pause ends, you and your servicer agree on how to handle the balance that built up. Available options depend on your loan type and finances.
- Reinstatement: You pay the entire paused amount in a lump sum. Works if you’ve received a settlement, insurance payout, or similar windfall.
- Repayment plan: The missed payments spread over a set period, with a portion added to each monthly bill until you’re caught up.
- Payment deferral: The paused amount moves to the end of the loan term. You resume your regular monthly payment and owe the deferred balance only when you sell, refinance, or reach the original maturity date.
- Partial claim (FHA): The past-due amount goes into an interest-free subordinate lien on your property. You don’t repay it until the final mortgage payment, a sale, an assumption, a title transfer, or a refinance.5U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). FHA’s Loss Mitigation Program
- Loan modification: If you can’t afford your old payment at all, a modification permanently changes the loan terms. Fannie Mae’s Flex Modification, for example, targets a 20 percent reduction in your monthly payment by capitalizing arrears, adjusting the interest rate, extending the term up to 480 months, or forbearing part of the principal.9Fannie Mae. Flex Modification
On a federally backed loan, no servicer should treat a lump sum as the only option. If yours does, push back and ask about deferral or modification.
Credit, Escrow, and Taxes
As long as you follow the terms of a forbearance agreement, your account should stay listed in good standing. Servicers can note that payments are in forbearance, but that notation is not negative information. Other lenders reviewing your report later may still factor it into their decisions. Interest typically keeps accruing during the pause on fixed-rate mortgages, which can nudge your balance up and your score down slightly, with the effect usually fading once regular payments resume. The far worse outcome for your credit is skipping payments without a forbearance agreement in place, which gets reported as delinquency.
If your mortgage includes an escrow account for property taxes and homeowners insurance, your servicer should continue making those payments during forbearance. Confirm this early. A lapse in insurance or a missed tax payment becomes a separate problem on top of the mortgage.10Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Manage Your Money During Forbearance When forbearance ends, your escrow account will likely have a shortage from the months of advances the servicer made. Expect your monthly payment to rise to cover it, and ask about spreading the shortage over time rather than absorbing it in one hit.
Standard forbearance creates no tax issue because no debt is forgiven. But if your situation turns into a loan modification that reduces your principal, the forgiven amount counts as taxable income. For 2026 the exclusion for qualified principal residence indebtedness that previously shielded homeowners from this tax has expired. Any mortgage debt discharged after December 31, 2025, must be included in your gross income unless another exclusion applies, such as insolvency.11IRS.gov. Publication 4681 – Canceled Debts, Foreclosures, Repossessions, and Abandonments If a modification involves any principal forgiveness, talk to a tax professional before accepting it.
Protections While Your Request Is Pending
If you submit a complete loss mitigation application before your servicer has started foreclosure, the servicer cannot initiate foreclosure while the application is pending. Even if foreclosure has already begun, the servicer cannot move for a foreclosure judgment or conduct a sale as long as your complete application was received more than 37 days before the scheduled sale date.2eCFR. 12 CFR 1024.41 – Loss Mitigation Procedures This is the “dual tracking” prohibition, and it’s what keeps a servicer from processing your request for help with one hand while pushing foreclosure forward with the other.
If your servicer charges fees during forbearance that shouldn’t be there, send a written notice of error to the servicer’s designated address identifying the charge. The servicer must acknowledge within five business days and resolve it within 30 business days, with a possible 15-day extension if they tell you in writing beforehand. They cannot charge you for responding.12eCFR. 12 CFR 1024.35 – Error Resolution Procedures
If your servicer evaluates you after forbearance and denies a loan modification, you have 14 days to appeal. The appeal must be reviewed by someone not involved in the original decision, and the servicer must respond in writing within 30 days. If the appeal produces a new offer, you get 14 days to accept or reject it.13Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Can I Appeal a Loan Modification Denial? This appeal right applies specifically to modification denials, not to other options like short sales or forbearance itself.
Refinancing or Selling After Forbearance
Forbearance doesn’t lock you out of a refinance permanently, but there’s a waiting period. For Fannie Mae loans, borrowers who completed a loss mitigation solution like a repayment plan, deferral, or modification become eligible for a new refinance or purchase mortgage after making three timely payments. If you were in forbearance but ultimately paid every payment in full and on time, there’s no waiting period.14Fannie Mae. Fannie Mae Announces Flexibilities for Refinance and Home Purchase Eligibility
Selling during or after forbearance is always on the table. A deferred balance or partial claim lien gets paid off from the sale proceeds at closing. As long as you have enough equity to cover the full mortgage balance plus the deferred amount, the sale works like any other.
Free Help From a HUD Counselor
HUD-approved housing counselors can review your finances, explain your options, and communicate with your servicer on your behalf at no cost. Call 800-569-4287 or search for a local agency on HUD’s website.15U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Housing Counseling Bringing a counselor in early, before you’re deep in the process, tends to produce better outcomes than fighting through servicer bureaucracy alone.