Surrendered house, confused on what to do?

[Mark80]

I surrendered my house a couple weeks ago and finally found a new place to move. We will be moving into the new house the week of December 29th.

Anyhow no one told me what or how I was suppose to handle walking away from my current house?

Some things I was hoping you guys knew?

1. What do I do about the utilities, do I just turn off everything and keep the heat super low until the bank finally takes the keys?

2. Do I have to do anything else from this point on, what about escrow and taxes? Or do I just lose any balance that was in there?

If anyone has any tips or things I should know outside of my few questions please let me know. I still have not gotten a notice or anything from the mortgage company!

Thanks

[BassBoy]

Some answers/tips:

For #1: Turn off everything and contact the utility companies to do their disconnect at the street. Why continue to pay for something you're not using. And make sure the utilities physically come out and do their disconnect. I say this because the water division where we lived did not come out as we requested (a few times) and then they were sending me water bills 18 months later for whomever was in the house after the foreclosure. I was being billed for the new owners water useage. If the utilities do their disconnect, it won't be as easy to turn everything on for the new owner. They'll have to call and activate everything. Be diligent and follow up with the utilities.

For #2: Your escrow should cover the taxes and insurance for a while. You don't get whatever is in the account, even if there was a surplus. Anyways, when the escrow has been depleted, the lender will continue to pay the taxes to ensure no liens are placed on the property during foreclosure and the lender will obtain their own insurance. These costs will be added to whatever balance you owed the lender and will be discharged through your BK.

When you leave the home, it's best to contact the lender and notify them you're vacating/have vacated the property. More than likely, the lender will send someone to secure the property and maybe winterize the home.

[Mark80]

Thank you very much for the tips!


One last thing,

Do I call customer service for Citimortgage, or do I mail them a certified letter. Not sure who to ask for at the mortgage company to tell them I'm vacating?

[BassBoy]

Most home loan lenders have a BK department, and your account is probably in their hands since you've filed and that's who you should contact. It's fine to contact them by phone and inform them you've vacated the home, but you could always follow up with a letter. You'll need to know where to mail the letter to anyways. You wouldn't want to send it to where your payments usually went.

[Mark80]

Ok good, so once I move out I will just call the 1-800 number and ask to speak to the BK department.

Thanks for clearing it up!