Where can I get legal help to avoid foreclosure on my home?

Hard to give some thoughts without more information. Off the bat, are you escrowing for taxes and home insurance? If so, check if your taxes increased, that would likely account for increase, if there has been no increase in mortgage costs.
Please expound on what exactly you are asking?

If you are escrowing your taxes and insurance, perhaps either of those have increased which would affect your monthly mortgage payment. You need to speak with the bank who can give you a statement on the increase.

As an experiment, to see what would happen, I just typed "debt advice illinois" into Google and it took me to the state's own link with lots of useful information about how and where to find reputable financial advice.

So just as a start, I'd try doing that with your own state.

This company uses a computer program to adjust payments resulting in these oncreases. There are class action lawsuits against this company. Google Shellpoint Mortgage to get the telephone number to inquire about joining one of these class actions lawsuits. Refinancing the loan with another lender might be an option if you have good credit.

grammajochim, you mentioned your mortgage is at 9%. If that rate has been the same through the years then that tells me you got your mortgage back in the late 1980's and early 1990's when that amount was the norm between 9%-10%.

If I had your mortgage, i would shop around for re-financing to get you down to a rate below 5%. If you have a friend who knows a Realtor, that Realtor can recommend a loan officer or two that can help you find a new loan. Your monthly payment would be lower.

Yes I was gonna to say that if the escrow covers your property taxes and or insurance, they may have gone up. If your property taxes went up, I would contact the county assessors office (or whoever handles it in your county), there be exceptions for seniors, you can file to have the house valued at a lower value & be exempt from tax increases.

The prime rate was raised to 4.75%, higher than it's been since 4-30-2008. That as well could account for part of the increase.

Did your statement show any breakdown?

It has to be the escrow for taxes or insurance. If the mortgage is not adjustable, the change in prime rates would not effect it. But as others have said, as the lender.

Gramma, typically an insufficiency in the escrow account is created when taxes are raised, and the mortgage payment is raised to account for that extra amount. A mortgage I had decades ago and now paid off was on that basis. The payments varied annually, depending on the tax assessment.

However, Shellpoint is a predatory lender, so who knows what shenanigans they're pulling? They may in fact be forcing people into foreclosure so they can snap up desirable properties.

I don't know w/o checking what federal agency governs Shellpoint. I doubt if it's a national bank and subject to the same federal oversight. You might look at your mortgage to see what its corporate status is, i.e., a bank such as Chase would be described as a national banking association.

Find Shellpoint's corporate status and designation, then contact that oversight agency and file a complaint. It might not stop their action, but it will help add fuel to the fire of action against them.

During the real estate crisis, there were several companies that provided free counseling; Lighthouse was one of them. Your profile doesn't indicate what state are you're in, so I can't recommend any agency that can provide counseling. You can google "foreclosure counseling in {state} ).

And if you're a senior, contact local senior centers and ask if they have "attorney days" when attorneys offer free limited advice. Ask an attorney which agencies in your area provide free counseling for foreclosure actions.

Whether or not Shellpoint can legally foreclose depends on the terms of default in your Mortgage. It's been years since I've worked on residential mortgages, but the terms used to specific a certain amount of time for the mortgagor/borrower (you) to cure any default.

Check that to determine if they're in compliance, check to see what the number of days is before they issue a default notice, how long you have to cure the default, and the others terms set forth for foreclosure. Or have they already sent you a default notice?

And, as suggested in your other post, contact the law firm(s) handling the class action suit and ask to join as a party plaintiff.

You wrote that you can't afford to file a civil lawsuit. It's been years since I've worked on any class action lawsuits, but I don't recall that plaintiffs were required to pay any funds up front. What costs did you think you would have to pay to file a suit?