When William Weinbroer of Parma Heights, Ohio, broke his ankle while on vacation, he ended up missing work for four months. The locomotive engineer and his wife, Denise, thought they could make ends meet with his disability income.

They were wrong.

The disability payments didn't cover all their bills, and soon they fell one month behind on their mortgage.

Even knowing they couldn't pay their mortgage, the couple didn't call their lender. It wasn't until a second month's payment was about to be late that they contacted the loan servicer.

"I was just too embarrassed and ashamed," said Denise Weinbroer.

The Weinbroers are typical of many borrowers who fall behind on their mortgage payments. They fail to call their lender or worse, ignore their lender's efforts to reach them.

In fact, 75 percent of delinquent borrowers who were contacted by their loan servicers didn't follow up to discuss workout options, according to a newly released survey by Freddie Mac and Roper Public Affairs and Media. Roper is a market research firm and Freddie Mac buys mortgages from lenders and packages them into securities to sell to investors.

About 30 percent to 40 percent of people never returned calls from their mortgager holders until it gets to the point of a foreclosure, said Ingrid Beckles, Freddie Mac's vice president of default asset management.

"Just because you don't think there is hope doesn't mean there isn't," she said.

Borrowers do have options, Beckles said.

For example, you might be a candidate for forbearance, in which a lender will temporarily allow you to pay less than the full amount of your mortgage payment. You may even pay nothing at all during the forbearance period. Many of the victims of Hurricane Katrina were granted forbearances. But this is an option not just for homeowners who have been victims of a disaster.

Mortgage companies may consider forbearance if you can show you'll be getting funds from a bonus, a tax refund, or some other source that will let you bring the mortgage current at a specific time in the future. They may allow a forbearance if a drop in your income is only temporary, such as in the Weinbroers' case.

You could negotiate a repayment plan. Typically a lender will give you a fixed amount of time to repay the amount you are behind by combining a portion of what is past due with your regular monthly payment. At the end of the repayment period, you have paid back the amount.

A 2004 Freddie Mac study found repayment plans could lower the probability of home loss by 80 percent among all borrowers and by 68 percent among low-to-moderate income borrowers.

For more details go to Freddie Mac's Web site, www.freddiemac.com. In the site's search engine, type "avoiding foreclosure."

In another option, your lender might allow a modification in which the original terms of your mortgage are changed to get out of the arrears. For instance, the term of your loan could be extended so you have to pay less each month.

Maybe your lender won't be so accommodating. Perhaps you are so far behind that you can't catch up. But you know what? You will never know if you don't pick up the telephone and call.

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