Need Clarification, foreclosure, non reaffirmed mortgage

[murphsmom]

It appears through all my research that New York is the state that is taking the longest from foreclosure to filing to the day you have to get out, the estimates I'm seeing are 900 days or more! New York, New Jersey and FL seem to have the longest times. However, I think we'd be prepared to move on in about 12 months. Any additional time after that would help to save more money, etc...

Does it matter if my bank is a smaller local credit untion, not a huge mammoth national bank? I'm wondering if the length of the whole process depends solely on the bank, or also on how busy the courts are?

[Drazil65]

Your obligation to pay that debt was discharged, you owe nothing more. If you know that you want to move eventually anyway then go ahead and just start saving what you can for the move at some point. Do not offer any info, do not offer to "sell" it for them (they will try to guilt you into a short sale or putting it on the market), stay until you HAVE to move out. They have not even started the foreclosure process yet so even if they could push it through you still would have a few months ahead of you. NY is probably like most places and will take much longer than you think.

Come up with a plan and a timeline (do some research and try to find out how long foreclosures are taking in NY these days), plan out your move and how much you need to save in the meantime. You have some time so now is when you should start planning. Good luck and search here as well for people that have done this.

[Nufsayd]

Wow...I don't have the answers to all your questions, but you don't have to notify them, they will be notified via electronic or snail mail means. Given your situation I would not offer any information and just wait for them to be notified.

In the meantime, do you know the timeline for NY foreclosures or have your researched it?

[murphsmom]

HAMP mod took full effect May 2011. Filed Ch 7 in July, fully discharged in Sept, did not reaffirm the mortgage. Bank never sent reaffirmation paperwork, we wouldn't have signed anyway. We paid and stayed until December 2011 until we no longer could pay due to husbands job loss. We've missed 3 payments, bank sent out letter last week stating we had to pay in full, sent another letter today saying we had until March 1 to pay $5000 (total currently owed), or they will start foreclosure proceedings.

We reside in NY State. We are seriously considering just letting the house foreclose, not making any more payments, and saving that money toward a much smaller, more affordable home that will be solely in my name ( I didn't file BK, credit is clean, will qualify for small home).

Because the mortgage was discharged (although honestly, I do not think the collection dept at my bank is even aware of this), and not reaffirmed (again, I think they aren't aware of this now), will the normal foreclosure process in NY State be sped up? In other words, can they skip some of the steps that they have to do because the mortgage was discharged? Or, can we reasonably expect that the timeline for them to foreclose on this home would be similar to any other non discharged mortgage?

Wondering how much time we have, if we should or shouldn't bring to the collections dept attention that it's been discharged (will this buy more time), or should we tell them, and have them start the process quicker? Our taxes are escrowed through the bank, can the county force a tax sale? We plan on staying in the house and maintaining the grounds until they throw us out.

This is no longer a "what if" scenario, we're at a crossroads, need to decide pretty quickly which way we are going with this. We could maybe get caught up with a couple of payments over the next few months, but this won't be enough to satisfy the bank, and I don't want to keep getting further and further behind. I'm sick of paying so much for this house, but not sure that the alternative (smaller house, but have to come up with closing costs, etc... is a better option).

Thanks, I know this is long and I'm sorry. I'm just looking for opinions and advice. What would YOU do?