A forebearance plan - this process involves the reduction or suspension of payments for a period of time followed by a period of time during which the deferred payments are made up, similar to the repayment plan.

A repayment plan - this process involves making up the amount past due over a period of months by paying a full payment plus a partial payment on the past due balance each month. Usually with this plan the debtor is required to give their lender lender a cost contribution equivalent to 40-50% of their total arrears (total of late payments, bank fees and attorneys fees). Coming up with such a lump sum is quite difficult for homeowners who just faced a hardship.

What the pros of the forebearance plan - there are only positives with one exception - the exception is that you will have to not only pay current mortgage obligation but also additional monies to make up for the amount past do. The benefits of this plan are many - it allows you time to overcome the hardship just faced, allows time to save some money to help with the future payments - the biggest is that it stops the foreclosure.

I would prefer to see a loan modification rather than a forebearance - a loan modification lowers the interest rate being paid thereby lowering the monthly payment - sometimes the borrower can even get the lender to reduce the loan amount too.