New Questions about walking away from house.

[tobee43]

You don't really have to decide now. The important thing would be NOT to reaffirm. After that, do what works best for you.

One thing to keep in mind: if you have a HOA, bankruptcy only discharges fees up to the filing. Future HOA fees would be your responsibility until the house changed title.

well, i would decide prior to submitting your petition because otherwise the mortgage will not be discharged...

and that is most certainly correct about those HOA fees...and some are very high!

[tobee43]

freddy, we surrendered our home and have no regrets, however, no small children at this time to figure into the equation. actually the older they get the more difficult the move is...unless you move within the area and rent.

in our case we tried everything before we resigned ourselves that we had to leave after 33 years...it was the place we had every xmas and holiday...where were brought our children home from the hospital all wrapped neatly in little baby blankets...what sweat or SWEET LOL thoughts....UNTIL........

we tried everything to stay ....loan mod that didn't work...borrowing money...getting deeper in it...when one day we woke up and thought??????.......

it needs a new roof...new fence..(at least 15k) new bathrooms, new kitchen....has mold, needs new septic, new well, new wiring....and so on and more.... most likely at least 150k if not MORE worth of work.....holy cow!!! it's sooooo big we had it almost every room closed off except 3 because it was to expensive to heat and cool.

the best thing we did was leave that horror of a house. of course i still have the wonderful memories...they will alway be with us, no matter where we are.

now...if you wait until AFTER the chapter 7 you are leaving yourself open for foreclosure fees...and in some states like the one we were living in, we would have owed the difference between what the bank sold it for and what we owed. additionally, in the state we came from there were no FEE limits set my law for forclosures so we knew people that really honestly were charged between 50k-100k JUST FOR FEES!!!!!

so, for us it was no brainer...but still difficult. looking back now, it was the BEST thing we ever did other than file for bankrutpcy!!

best of luck with your decision...it's a hard one sometimes...do the pros and cons...

also...just to let you know my daughter recently relocated and her home it still for sale. her feeling is she an her husband can care LESS about ever owning a home again because of all the problems...they'd rather have the landlord fix the problems...i'm not certain i agree with that...but you should see the house they live in now..it's absolutely beautiful. she's renting her other place until maybe it sells.

think about it...it's a hard choice!

[Freddy03]

The FC would not have an impact on your credit. It would have an impact on when you can purchase a house again, however. The actual FC is not a money/billing matter but a title changing back to the bank legal process. The FC timeline would depend on your state, so you might have a few months or could possibly have much longer to stay in the house before having to move.

Many have posted about having no trouble finding a place, just offering a higher deposit.

You don't really have to decide now. The important thing would be NOT to reaffirm. After that, do what works best for you.

One thing to keep in mind: if you have a HOA, bankruptcy only discharges fees up to the filing. Future HOA fees would be your responsibility until the house changed title.

Thanks - I haven't even talked to my husband about it yet. I just checked some homes for rent in our zip code and yes the houses are nicer, a little bigger but only about $200 cheaper than our mortgage.

So I can discharge our back HOA dues? That's great news b/c our HOA dues are pretty cheap (only 300 year) but long story short we owe for a few years b/c the ex management co applied payments incorrectly and then ditched us so we stopped paying when there wasn't a board. Still no HOA board.

[SMinGA]

The FC would not have an impact on your credit. It would have an impact on when you can purchase a house again, however. The actual FC is not a money/billing matter but a title changing back to the bank legal process. The FC timeline would depend on your state, so you might have a few months or could possibly have much longer to stay in the house before having to move.

Many have posted about having no trouble finding a place, just offering a higher deposit.

You don't really have to decide now. The important thing would be NOT to reaffirm. After that, do what works best for you.

One thing to keep in mind: if you have a HOA, bankruptcy only discharges fees up to the filing. Future HOA fees would be your responsibility until the house changed title.

[Freddy03]

Ok so last week I was 100% sure I wanted to stay in our home for a couple of reasons -

1. Did not want to uproot the kids from their schools.
2. Did not want family to know about the BK.
3. Do not want to run into problems finding a nice rental home after the BK/Foreclosure.
4. We have 2 tiny dogs.


But I was thinking I DO NOT want to come out of BK and a few months down the road we are in the same possition b/c of our high mortgage.

Right now I do love my house, love the location but hate our neighborhood (27 houses - 5 are rented out - 4 are vacant)

We are underwater about 90K (because we stupidly refinanced a few years ago and added all our other debt and car payment to the mortgage).

I have also heard horror stories of people renting then forclosure papers show up and they have 30 days to get out.

So my questions are:

1. What happens if we stop paying our mortgage after the BK?
2. What impact would a FC and BK have on our credit?
3. How hard would it be to rent?