Congrats MyGirl922!!!!
Hello Everyone...in need of some advice.
1st Mort with Wells Fargo, current, owe $134,400
2nd Mort with Ditch, stopped paying in July 2011, I think I owe around 65k (I'm not sure as my account is closed and the Principal Balance of what IS shown on my act online is 60,260.
Home is worth about 200k.
BK Chapter 7 filed 8 yrs ago, did not reaffirm the first but DID affirm the 2nd...
My father is buying us (my family and I) a house outright, closing is in a few weeks. We will be paying him back.
So, needless to say, we would like to get out of this house. I spoke with a short sale attorney who said we could go that route. However, we'd need to have a hardship (could be being late on a payment or two or three, or job loss, divorce, etc). We don't necessarily HAVE a hardship other than taxes have gone up, under estimated taxes for escrow have gone up every year making our payments go up, but by the time we pay our $1600 mortgage, there isn't much left over to repair things around the house (cracks everywhere - needs to have drywall repaired and repainted, for example), nor is there much left over every month to just LIVE. We've had to dip into our savings just to pay bills and/or get groceries. We usually receive about $5000 in income taxes every year, and it's usually gone within a few months because we've had to dig into it.
Anyway, so we were thinking of refiling CH 7 again - that would release us from owing the 1st and 2nd (if we didn't reaffirm both), but not the lien and I'm reading that in order for them to release the lien, they'd have to be paid!! I'm terrified they could come after us (garnish wages). Question: in the filing of the Ch 7, can you make a 'statement' that they have to let the lien go when the BK is discharged?
Our other option would be to short sale. A realtor told us we could possibly sell for $200k (or less - we live in a cookie cutter community, and a house just like ours, only with NICE stuff and NEW stuff (windows, granite counters, new water heater, etc), just sold for $203 (after starting at $212k). Our house isn't as nice (again with the peeling paint and badly needed paint job, outdated flooring to name a few), so I'm guessing it wouldn't go for more than $180k (I'm putting a call into the realtor again today to further discuss). Realtor told me closing fees and taxes and recording fees and stamps and all that comes to $20k. So - 134,400+65000 (lets say) is 199. House sells for 180k. Everything total comes to $223k, lets say, that's -$43k deficiency. I'm told, at this point, it becomes an unsecured loan, much like a credit card, and THEN we can file BK on that and the rest of our debt...TRUE??
So I'm just looking for advice - what's the best thing to do in our situation??? We don't want the house, and we certainly don't want to have to pay anything (now or in the future when the 2nd decides to come calling). Advice, anyone?? Thank you!!!