NEW YORK (MainStreet) — For a homeowner facing foreclosure, there’s a silver lining: Lenders are so backed up that some homeowners may be able to stay in their homes for years before getting an eviction notice.

What’s the best way to manage the home while the process grinds on? Should you forego all maintenance, viewing it as money down the drain? Should you drop your homeowner’s insurance?

These are tricky questions, and the answers depend not just on your finances but how you envision your path to a better future.

The foreclosure backlog is mainly due to the mountains of paperwork and manpower shortages facing lenders. In some cases lenders may deliberately drag their feet in the hope that economic improvements will enable homeowners to resume payments, or because home prices may rebound, allowing the lender to recover more by foreclosing and reselling the property later.

For the homeowner, the first issue is whether you really think foreclosure is inevitable. If the prolonged process will give you time to find a new job and eventually resume your mortgage payments, you’re almost certainly better off avoiding foreclosure, which would destroy your credit rating.

If you have a chance of recovering, try negotiating with the lender, offering a partial payment, perhaps at a reduced interest rate. An ideal solution, very hard to get but worth a try, is a reduction in the principal balance on the loan. That would reduce payments and make it easier to someday clear the debt by selling the property.

Also try to do at least enough maintenance to prevent the home from losing value. Roof leaks and dripping pipes should be repaired, as water damage can be very expensive. Peeling paint should be touched up to prevent rot as well, and plug holes that would allow squirrels or other creatures into the attic, where they can ruin the insulation.

If you don’t think you’ll be able to keep the home, ask the lender to approve a short sale, with the home being sold for less than you owe and the lender accepting the proceeds as satisfying the debt. A short sale would do about the same damage to your credit rating as a foreclosure, but it would leave you with a better chance of getting a new mortgage a couple years down the road.

Whether you will keep the home or not, deal with loose steps or cracks in the walkway – anything that could injure anyone coming onto the property – so you don’t add a lawsuit to your problems.

Even if you’re sure you'll lose the property, keep up with your homeowner’s insurance, which provides liability coverage and covers your possessions in addition to the home.

If your homeowner’s policy is paid through an escrow account with your lender, find out what happens to it if you stop making mortgage payments. The lender may have a basic fire and flood policy that only protects the lender, leaving you exposed to losses on your possessions or for liability judgments.

If you pay the insurer yourself, you could look for ways to trim the premium, by dropping riders on collectibles or other items not covered by the basic policy. You can probably reduce your premium by accepting a higher deductible, or the value of damages you'd pay before the insurance kicks in.

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