Partnerships Help Borrowers Cope with Hard Times.

With current hard economic times and Americans continuing to pile on debt, many in the mortgage industry are starting to take stronger pre-emptive measures against possible defaults on their loans by reaching borrowers as early as possible in the delinquency phase - under 30 days - and referring them to counseling.

Also a growing trend now emerging among mortgage lenders and servicers is creating direct partnerships with counseling agencies to which they refer their borrowers, and in certain partnerships, pay for the expense of having counseling for their borrowers.

Most notably, many in the mortgage industry are looking to member agencies of the National Foundation for Credit Counseling, Silver Springs, Md., for creating such partnerships. The NFCC is a national nonprofit credit counseling network.

Fairbanks Capital Corp., a Salt Lake City-based financial services company engaged in the servicing and special servicing of single-family residential mortgage loans, is among the most recent companies to enter into a direct partnership with a member agency of NFCC.

Fairbanks is partnering with the Consumer Credit Counseling Service of San Francisco in a relationship where it will refer its borrowers who start to shows patterns of having difficulties in making their mortgage payments.

The PMI Group Inc., Walnut Creek, Calif., which holds a majority interest in Fairbanks, will support the Fairbanks- CCCS of San Francisco agreement with a two-year, $100,000 grant to the counseling agency to cover start-up costs of the partnership and other expenses.

The start-up costs will include "hiring additional counselors and systems setup. Then, CCCS will charge Fairbanks for borrower counseling on an ongoing basis," said Taia Lockhart, director of emerging markets at PMI.