I watched a middle-aged widow lose her home recently. Her story was familiar. She owned her simple brick residence outright until four years ago, when a mortgage broker stopped by and offered her a loan too good to be true. In exchange for taking on a modest monthly payment, she could make some needed repairs and consolidate other debts. More sophisticated than many borrowers, she realised she was getting an adjustable-rate mortgage.

What she didn’t realise was that, in the biggest “bait-and-switch” ever pulled by an entire industry, her ARM was not tied to the prime rate or any other index, as adjustable-rate mortgages have traditionally been. Her rate adjusted periodically ever upward. When it hit 14 per cent, her social worker’s salary could no longer cover the payments.

I watched this story unfold in court, from my seat in a bankruptcy judge’s chair. While a Chapter 13 filing temporarily stopped the foreclosure on this woman’s home, it did little more than buy a few months’ time. Under existing law, bankruptcy courts cannot modify the terms of home mortgages. To keep her home, this debtor needed to demonstrate sufficient income not only to make her ongoing payments but also to cover the payments she had defaulted on. Her proposed plan was clearly not feasible based on her salary, so I had no choice but to lift the stay and allow the foreclosure to continue.

For more than a year, a number of legislators, academics, and judges have advocated removing this ban on home mortgage modification to help stem the increasing number of foreclosures. Allowing modifications is a solid solution. This homeowner could have restructured her loan to terms resembling those of a conventional mortgage. If the court found that the market value of her home had fallen below what she owed, the secured portion that must be repaid in full would be reduced to the house’s actual value; otherwise, the amount to be repaid would stay the same. The interest rate would be adjusted to reflect the prevailing market.

There is a simple answer to the frequent, hyperbolic assertion that such a process would be abused: Chapter 13 is no walk in the park. It requires public disclosure of every aspect of your life, examinations under oath by a trustee and creditors, allowing creditors to haul you into court on any objection, and relinquishment of control of your financial life for up to five years. If you falter, your case will be dismissed and you will lose the entire benefit of the bankruptcy law.

That is precisely why allowing mortgage modifications is such a good approach. It would elegantly separate those homeowners who desperately need to stay in their homes and have sufficient incomes to make reasonable payments from those investors who bet on lax regulation, easy credit, and an appreciating market in buying residential properties. Those in the latter category will have no use for this process, but for the first category, it could be a powerful step back to financial stability. — The Christian Science Monitor