At 12:01, Jan. 1, 2000 your mortgage lender won't begin foreclosure on your home because it thinks you've missed mortgage payments since 1900, but your VCR could act up and your home security system could forget that it's time to lock up.

Home owners needn't fear financial fallout or the revenge of personal home electronics when the new millennium dawns, but they should perform some recording keeping chores savvy homeowners already conduct and take stock of certain home appliances.

That's because the "Y2K bug," (which really isn't a bug or computer virus, but a computer design problem) prevents some computers and computer chips from reading the Year 2000.

Talk of a computer-based economic disaster stems from the early 1960s, when bulky computers put room for data at a premium and computer designers sought efficient, space-saving designs to cram in as much information as possible.

One space-saving design effort limited date representations to six-digit fields, two each for the day, month and year and then hard wired or embedded the design into the hardware.

A computer that's not "Y2K-compliant" might read Jan. 1, 2000, for instance, as 1/1/00, think it's 1900 and choke on its silicon chips. Your VCR could hiccup or worse your mortgage servicer could garble your records and blame it on you.

Y2K pessimists say that unless computers are upgraded to read the new millennium by the numbers, anything can happen on Jan. 1, 2000, from security systems calling the cops for a 100-year old break in, to lenders ceasing to credit your mortgage payments, to worldwide economic chaos.

The general consensus among saner officials grappling with Y2K however, is that it poses little if any threat to major finances related to home ownership and few, if any, appliances will break down.

When it comes to home-related finances like mortgage payments, insurance premiums and property taxes, both government and private entities aren't about to let allow their revenue streams be interrupted by a design glitch.

``Mortgage companies can't help the customer if they are out of business,'' said Jim Horne, director of technology with the Mortgage Bankers Association of America in Washington, D.C.

That's just what the Federal Reserve Board said it would do — shut down lenders who didn't make their computers Y2K-compliant early this year.

No one has reported chain locks on any bank doors, yet.

Instead, the mortgage industry launched a " Residential Year 2000 Initiative" of testing and retesting computer systems to make sure they are Y2K-compliant in-house, and that they "talk" to vendors' computers, including those of appraisers, home inspectors, title and escrow companies and other real estate-related firms involved in the home-buying transaction network.

Likewise, insurers are prepared to keep sending you your regular monthly premium without lapses in your policy. And you can bet property tax collectors also will send out your annual bill right on schedule in the Year 2000.

That's good, because, while some Y2K-triggered events won't be covered by your homeowner policy, others could be, say in the rare instance that a timer on your heating unit failed and somehow started a fire, according to Stephanie Saari, spokeswoman for the Western Insurance Information Service.

Other appliances could fail too.

The federal Consumer Product Safety Commission sees few if any safety issues with appliances that could fail. Older VCRs could fail to recognize a date and not record, say, All My Children, but all that threatens is your couch potato stuffing.

The safety commission says, small, consumer-installed home security systems could experience problems and consumers should contact their system's manufacturer to check it out.

Likely the worst that could happen is the alarm would go off and ring for the next 100 years.

But seriously folks...

Bruce F. Webster doesn't think the Year 2000 is a joke for home owners. Author of a book with a Y2K-compliant price, "The Y2K Survival Guide: Getting To, Getting Through, and Getting Past the Year 2000 Problem" (Prentice Hall, $19.99), Webster says home owners need to be more prepared than they think.

He says you'd better not be in escrow when the clock strikes midnight or you'll have a lot more to worry about than turning into a pumpkin. With so many companies involved in the sale of a home, somebody's computer is bound to glitch.

Webster, who helped Fannie Mae set up it's Y2K program, frets over old lock boxes, companies running computers dusty with age, electricity power grids and more.

Co-chair of the Washington, D.C. Year 2000 Group Webster wrote a book that contains reams of warnings about everything from your home's electrical system to the nation's food supply and at times it reads like a field manual for surviving Armageddon.

But if you read between the lines, Webster is only parroting what agencies like the Federal Emergency Management Agency, American Red Cross and California's earthquake preparedness agencies have been saying for decades.

Prepare for the worst and you can handle anything less.

If you wait until Jan. 1, 2000, it could be too late.

For more information and all the angst you can handle for the next millennium, visit the original Year 2000 Web site.

Published: February 12, 1999

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