Listing your home for short sale is not as complicated as you think. This is Part 5 in a series. If you've missed the prior installments, you can link to them here:
Listing Your Home for Short Sale, Part 1: Do You Qualify?
Listing Your Home for Sale Sale, Part 2: Choosing Your Listing Agent
Listing Your Home for Short Sale, Part 3: Collecting Your Financial Information
Listing Your Home for Short Sale, Part 4: The Hardship Letter
The final piece of prep work you will need to get your short sale on the right track is an authorization letter. Very simply, this is a letter where you will let your mortgage holder(s) know that you have hired a Realtor to help you in the short sale process, and are authorizing that Realtor to speak with the bank 
regarding your mortgage account.
The authorization letter will need to have the following information to meet just about any mortgage holder's requirements.
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Your mortgage loan number
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The property address that secures the mortgage
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Date you are writing the letter
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Preprinted names of all mortgagors
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Contact phone number for each mortgagor
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Signatures (wtih date) and last four digits of each mortgagor's Social Security Number
Here's a short and sweet version of an Authorization Letter that I give my short sale owners to sign.
August 23, 2009
Wells Fargo Mortgage Servicing
Re: Loan 123456789
To whom it may concern:
I am writing this letter to authorize my Realtor, Chris Ann Cleland of Long & Foster, to discuss the mortgage account above, securing the property located at 123 Main Street, Bristow, VA, 20136. I have hired Ms. Cleland to help sell my property through short sale. I understand that this authorization has no expiration date and will be valid as long as my mortgage account is open.
Cordially,
John Doe Date Last Four of SSN
703-555-5555
The final part of this series will focus on the final ingredients in the short sale. Listing Your Home for Short Sale, Part 6: Patience and Cooperation.
Chris Ann Cleland, Associate Broker- Licensed in Virginia, GRI, SFR, Northern Virginia Short Sale Specialist. Affiliated with Long & Foster, 7526 Limestone Drive, Gainesville, VA 20155. To contact Chris Ann, call 703-402-0037 or email chrisann@LNF.com. Or you can visit her website: www.nvarealestate.net.
Header is a combination of photos from the Bristow, Gainesville & Haymarket areas, taken by Chris Ann Cleland.
Hi Chris, it seems you have a timely post since short sales are a major component of sales this year. Have you posted on why one should do a short sale if the bank requires a note for the shortage?
This is an excellent series for consumers as well as Realtors. Good to know I have a short sale specialist I can call for advice if I need it.
Richard: If the bank is requiring a note, they have usually run credit and seen that the mortgage is the only thing that is creating a hardship....or that the mortgagee has a lump sum of money somewhere else that they have not disclosed. I've only had one short sale client asked to do a note. Their situation was that they just decided to stop paying the mortgage, nothing else. All other bills were being paid on time. Had the buyer not bailed on the contract, they would have done the note.
Short sales are always better than foreclosures. Less of a credit hit and you can buy again sooner.
JL: Anytime. I'm happy to lend a hand to anyone in our profession who wants the information.
My letter is very similar except I also include another agent in my office. She does the negotiations anyway, but it means if the bank can't get in touch with her for some reason, it can call me.
Elizabeth: That's a great idea. I have been considering adding to my business, and if I do, that agent will need to be authorized too.
Chris Ann --- another great post on short sales --- if I ever have a question, I'm definitely calling you.
Thanks.
Liz: You can call me anytime. I love helping my fellow Realtors.
Very well put together letter. And yes this is the bulk of what's going on in the marketplace. We just have to get used to it.
Robert: Short sales have been the bulk of our marketplace for two years. They are so frustrating.
Chris, I have never done any short sales before, heard about the frustration many times. But your lay out makes it easier to understand. Thanks for the infos, it is really very generous of you to share this knowledge with all of us.
Rita: There is lots of talk about the frustrations, and not so much about how to SUCCEED at them. Don't let the negative talk about there scare you. These things can get done.
Chris,
Great blog.
To everyone, just a note regarding the last 4 digits of the SSN. We sent Wells Fargo/ASC an authorization letter which had the full SSN of the borrower and the file was shredded. We resubmitted the exact same documents with the just the last 4 of the SSN and the file went through.
-Mako
Mako: It's really something how picky banks can be, isn't it?
Chris,
They told me that due to security issues, they will not scan documents that have seller's full SSN. Therefore, they put it in the circular file. Picky. Picky. But, I can see their point. I wish I had known about this before I sent the docs over. Some white-out could have saved a lot of time and frustration.
-Mako
Mako: Wells Fargo chucked an authorization number three times. First cause it didn't have the date. We redid it. Then it didn't have the phone number. We redid it. THEN they needed the last four of the social. Couldn't they have given me all that infot the first time I asked?
What a great series on Short Sales. I'm glad that I found it. Will make a great reblog.
Anne: Thanks. I might have to redo the series and update it...keep it fresh.