Need suggestions to buy more time

[frodo123]

I will be filing chapter 7 bk, but not for another year. It's a long story, and I won't go into detail here, but I have single family investment residences + my owner occupied home that I want to stall the foreclosure process until I file the BK.

I've stopped making payments 90-120 days ago, and havent received the notices of default, but I am sure they are coming.

How can I stall the foreclosure process so I can make sure they dont foreclose prior to my bankruptcy?

Thanks

[fltoo]

In what state are you and who is the lender?

Countrywide in FL here and it is going on one year with no sale date for my foreclosure.

I even had a call today from CW retention dept. asking me if I wanted to save the house.

For the third time I told them no, and to go change the locks!

[HHM]

I am sure you have googled this issue yourself and came across many websites making all sorts of promises about stalling foreclosure. Even with the less than legitimate means at attempting to stall, trying to do so for a year is a tall order.

Since you are already behind on payments, the writing is on the wall and foreclosure is imminent. Truthfully, about all you can do to stall a foreclosure is file an action in court trying to allege some defense to foreclosure, i.e. that the loan servicer does not have standing to foreclose, etc. But generally, most of these "defenses" don't survive a motion for summary judgment unless there really is some defect in the mortgage.

[Flamingo]

Foreclosure is a hot topic in our daily newspaper's business section. Just the other day there was an article on how they are speeding up the process and moving quicker on home foreclosures. Folks looking for jobs find that there are lots of jobs available for cleaning up houses in foreclosure that are vacant and there are always jobs listed for help in car repossessions. You are playing a risk game as to foreclosure process in your situation - no one can say for certain what will occur for you. Best of luck.

[bmrigs]

Well you can contest that the mortgage company owns the original note on the house. There are judges in some states now rejecting foreclosures due to the mortage company not owning that original note. Why? Because many original mortages have been bundled into securities by private banks. Those loans could be sold several times to investment instituitions. There is a guy that has been living in his 1.5 million dollar home since 2002 in South Florida. The judge refused foreclosure to Washingtion Mutual and they have dropped any more attempts to reclaiming the home. If that doesnt work then I would just wait until you get the foreclosure papers and then file bankruptcy. I know down here in South Florida, many mortgage companies do not want to really kick people out of their homes because first, they dont want an abandoned property that could result in vandalism. Second, its hurricane season and they would want the homeowner to board up the house in case of a bad hurricane coming through.

[No Gravy]

In what state are you and who is the lender?

Countrywide in FL here and it is going on one year with no sale date for my foreclosure.

I even had a call today from CW retention dept. asking me if I wanted to save the house.

For the third time I told them no, and to go change the locks!

How long was it before you were required to vacate?

[Shaoline]

I'm in the same situation where I might not be filing bankruptcy until a year from now.

I had the situation a couple of weeks ago where I talked to a couple of attorneys in my attempt to stop a foreclosure on one of my properties. I found out, once there is a sale date it is next to impossible if you don't have the payment the lender will want. It is up to the disgression of the lender if they will extend or not. Talk to your lender, sometimes they will do a deal that will postpone action for a month or more (it didn't work for me), it all depends on the money you will give them (if you have any to give).

Also find out in your state when they can legally foreclose on you. This will help you determine how much time you might have. BUT for the most part lender can do what they want. One attorney told me the only right that I had was to pay the lender the past due balance but beyond that I didn't have any rights. In California it's 9 months before they can foreclose unless they do "Notice of Default and Election to sell..." which a attorney explained to me means they are going to do a quickie repossession and will not sue me for the difference. It's because I have alot of equity in the house and they can easily get their payoff amount.

That house is being sold tomorrow at auction. It's a home that I owned for over 10 years. In case your curious of how I could lose it ; I had a couple of bad tenants, one of them abandoned the home and left the home un-livable, used some of the equity in the house to fix it up. The loan adjusted to $1000. above the normal amount of mortgage. The rent covered the old mortgage but not this new adjusted mortgage, next tenant started to slow pay down to no pay - had to spend more money to evict and spend another $3,000 to fix the abuse they put on the house, while all of this is going on I'm sending letters to the lender and talking to them on the phone to give me some sort of break if they could just re-adjust the payments for me, just work with me.

Well, there is more to the story but you get the basic idea. I truly hope you fair better then I have been. You can also try 1888 995-HOPE (4673) they can help you with the house you live in but not your investment property.

If you learn more info, please share. I have another house I want to save, made alot of calls this morning, looks like there's not a whole lot I can do but let them take the house. All this stuff has such a domino affect.

I wish you well.

[CH33 Paralegal]

Frodo: Each state has it's own F/C laws. I am in a "creditor state" which means that it's a pretty swift F/C process.

You mainly want to stay away from quit claims, short sales, transferring deeds, etc... that stuff will sketch a firm out on taking your case.

I would prepare to let the houses go.

I'm not sure why you want to wait to file and keep the F/C's from happening before you file, but any deficiency you get on the mortgages should be able to be treated in a 7 as a general unsecured debt, which can be discharged.