Tim Massad, acting assistant Treasury secretary for financial stability, attributed the program’s results to three things: “The eligibility pool is smaller than we originally thought, and it has been much more difficult to contact borrowers,” he said. “Third, the banks have not executed these programs very well.”

Kurt Eggert, a professor at Chapman University School of Law in Orange, Calif., said: “I think it’s clear that while HAMP was well-intentioned, it hasn’t delivered nearly enough. I think a big part of the problem is that nobody is effectively holding servicers’ feet to the fire to say, ‘Where are the loan mods that you should be delivering that help both borrowers and investors?’ ”

IN late 2008, a little more than a year after they filed for bankruptcy to protect their home, the Ahlemans received a letter notifying them that their loan was being transferred to a new lender and loan servicer. The company that they would now be dealing with was Litton Loan Servicing, a unit of Goldman Sachs.

Ms. Ahleman said she immediately began pestering Litton for a loan modification.

“I harassed and harassed Litton,” she recalls. “We had to submit the paperwork right when our loan was transferred. We didn’t hear anything through January and February. I would call them hysterical, crying.”

After months of no progress, in the spring of 2009, a reporter called Litton to ask why the Ahlemans’ loan modification was stalled. Litton responded quickly and later made the couple a compelling offer: It said it would cut the interest rate on their first mortgage from a variable rate of 9.3 percent to a fixed rate of 4.59 percent. Litton also offered to waive $38,332 in arrears on their loan, which included late fees and legal costs that had accumulated while the loan was in default.

Separately, Banco Popular, the bank that owned the $50,000 second mortgage on the Ahlemans’ property  which carried a whopping interest rate of 12 percent  wrote it off entirely. This eliminated the couple’s obligation to pay the debt, which had grown to $62,000, including fees and other charges. (The couple paid taxes on the forgiven mortgage.)

Under the terms of the new loan, the Ahlemans’ mortgage obligations dropped from almost $250,000 to roughly $198,000. Their monthly payment fell from $1,959 to $1,376.