Sinking Into Mortgage Debt
The Titanic sank in about 3 hours. You could be on-hold that long with your mortgage lender trying to negotiate a loan modification…meanwhile a man with a suit serves you a foreclosure complaint. Most people know when they are on a sinking ship. If your house is under water in property value, you probably realize that too. Furthermore, some credit-saving devices have more buoyancy than others. If you have repeatedly missed the lifeboat of winning the lottery, now may be a good time to consider whether you are going to sink or swim. You could walk the plank of your remaining credit, but it may be a short hike. A foreclosure defense often can float you some time to pursue an alternative landing while preventing your credit from being sucked into foreclosure. Read More
Short Sale & Alternatives
Short Sale is not for everyone. Each homeowner distress is different, and depending on your circumstances, you may be better off to seek forbearance, or in an extreme case, bankruptcy…or you may find better living through chemistry. A Short Sale is a real estate transaction where the lender agrees to accept less than the mortgage balance owed. Alternatives to Short Sale include: Refinance Forbearance Florida’s Hardest Hit Fund Mortgage Modification Winning the Lottery Inheritance from a Rich Relative Foreclosure Bankruptcy Insanity And Cardiac Arrest Obviously some alternatives are more desirable than others. The goal is to find a resolution that best fits your unique situation. Often a Short Sale is the optimal choice for a homeowner on an upside down property. A Short Sale brings the most money for the property at the time, and is not as bad on your credit score as a foreclosure or bankruptcy. Seek competent legal counsel to find out if a Short Sale will bring you the best benefit, or which alternative may be better suited for your circumstances. Read More
Time Change & Foreclosure
So your lender sold you a home loan that seemed great at the time. Then the time changed. Now you have to get up an hour earlier to make the mortgage payment while your house is worth less than half of what you paid for it. I don’t think we’re in 2006 anymore! Is it a quarter till doom? Half past foreclosure? The pre-dawn of bankruptcy? Or eleven o’clock in the mortgage modification? Time travel is often more likely than mortgage modification, but for most of us, we cannot go back to that nostalgic era when we were younger, thinner, and property value was twice what it is today. You cannot go back, but you can spring forward into Foreclosure Defense. Time is a side-effect of a Foreclosure Defense. While the legal defense addresses the litigation issues of your case, you have the opportunity to pursue an alternative to foreclosure, such as a short sale of your property. The idea is to reach an outcome of best benefit to you before the lender can complete his case against you. A Foreclosure Defense cannot change time, but it can change what happens in the end. Read More
Bankruptcy, Not the Only Answer to Foreclosure
Why did the Homeowner cross the Bankruptcy Road? To get to the other side of Foreclosure. Question is, did he look both ways? Bankruptcy is just a tool in my toolbox, and it can be the best thing. And it can be NOT the best thing, depending on the situation. Sometimes there are no solutions in Foreclosure, but typically there are choices. Alternative routes include short sale, loan modification, forbearance, and Florida’s Hardest Hit Fund. With good legal counsel, you can make choices toward the best benefit for your financial future. Look both ways before you cross the Bankruptcy Street; see what legal avenues are available. Bankruptcy is not the only answer. Read More
Gift of the Mortgage Modification Magi
A young married couple was very much in love, but they could barely afford their one bedroom house. The husband had a pay cut at his job, and then the couple began to fall behind on their mortgage, but they never gave up hope. The couple worked diligently with the loan department towards a mortgage modification. With lower payments, they would be able to stay in their cozy little home. The loan department offered the couple a HAMP modification (Home Affordable Mortgage Program), which gave them a three month trial of lowered payments, after which they could get a permanent modification. The couple made it through the first payment, and then the second, and when they cleared the third, they rejoiced. The husband stood on the curb of their one bedroom home and waited for the permanent modified loan package to arrive by FedEx…and while he stood there, he was served with foreclosure papers. The irony was not bittersweet. It was a demonstration that the loan department and the legal department do not speak. Yes, while you are working to negotiate a mortgage modification, also yes, the legal department is putting together a foreclosure lawsuit against you. The lender works [...] Read More
Lemons to Lemonade
In Foreclosure Defense, you work with what you have to make the best of a sour situation. It might not turn out as well as lemonade, but it is usually better than lemon-seed-surprise. There is a lot you can do with lemons, but getting a free house is not one of those things. You cannot make double chocolate cake with lemons, nor can you get a free house with Foreclosure Defense. Instead, you can try for a best case scenario from a worst case circumstance. You may be looking at a short sale, a loan modification, forbearance, refinance, and in some special cases, bankruptcy. The goal is to fit the resolution to the homeowner’s needs for optimal financial security. Foreclosure is bad, but Foreclosure Defense may be able to squeeze the best possible result from a sour situation. Read More
Losing Ground
Whether you are strangled by high mortgage payments, drowning in market value, or both, if you are facing foreclosure you are losing ground. How fast you give up yardage, though, may determine your financial position for the future. Time is a side effect of Foreclosure Defense. Time can be very useful. Foreclosure Defense gives you the opportunely to create a fallback position, and the time in which to pursue it. There is no such thing as a free lunch…the same goes for houses. Eventually you are going to lose your Foreclosure case, but if you have a Short Sale or a Loan Modification or other resolution in place, then you will be better off. Foreclosure Defense is not about whether you win or lose, but how fast you can recover. It is a way to make a positive attempt at a better financial future. Read More
Foreclosure, Something to Crow About
Once upon a time there was a very clever Fox. He came upon a Crow who sat high up in a tree with a nice bit of cheese in her beak. The Fox said to himself, If I can get that crow talking, the cheese will fall from her mouth and I shall have it. And so the Fox tried to engage the Crow in conversation. He started with flattery, telling the Crow what fine black feathers she had, but the Crow just batted her eyes at him and held onto the piece of cheese. Next, he said that because she was so beautiful she must have a lovely voice to match, but that did not work either. Finally the Fox offered her a three million dollar home loan and her jaw dropped like a broken drawbridge. “Why I never thought I could qualify for such a loan,” the Crow declared. The Fox gobbled the cheese quickly and sold off the Crow’s loan. That was back in 2005. The Crow qualified for the loan at the time, but with the change in the economy, she found that she could no longer make the payments on it. Her nest egg was [...] Read More
Foreclosure Mediation: Check, Please!
So you go out to a restaurant and the service is lousy and there is only one thing on the menu. Sounds like Foreclosure Mediation—check, please! Foreclosure Mediation is supposed to be a negotiation, but in reality, it is a monologue. You cannot negotiate only one option. And you cannot negotiate with someone who only has the authority to offer one option. The Florida Supreme Court mandated Foreclosure Mediation in 2009 to help relieve the backlog of cases, but the program stagnated over the singular result of all Foreclosure Mediations. A high court panel recently recognized the problem. Loan Modification (despite its mythic proportions) can be a viable resolution to foreclosure…so can a handful of other choices. Of the 350,000 foreclosure cases in Florida, they are not all alike. Homeowners benefit when they have more than one option. Foreclosure Defense offers a variety of choices, allowing the Homeowner to customize a strategy to his individual situation. Meanwhile, a legal defense questions the Lender’s authority to take action, keeping default from overtaking the Homeowner before a strategy has the chance to work. In the mayhem of Mortgage Backed Securities, does the plaintiff really own the loan and have the authority to [...] Read More