If you are filing for bankruptcy when is the best time to leave out of the house after filing bankruptcy?
1. When you know you can’t afford it? 2. When you fall three months behind? 3. When the bank tells you your house will go to foreclosure? 4. Right before you file bankruptcy? 5. Right after you file bankruptcy? 6. None of the above. The answer is none of the above. Moving from the house before you have to, can be a very costly mistake. Especially if you have a home owner or condo association. This is a common bankruptcy questions. When you move out-even if you file bankruptcy-you still own the house. You are responsible. You are responsible if there’s an accident. You are responsible for zoning. You are responsible for paying the association. You are responsible until your name is not on the tittle. Those after bankruptcy association payments are after bankruptcy debts. That means, they are obligation. I’m seeing people who quit paying and filed bankruptcy; and four months later the bank has foreclosed them. I’m also seeing people who stopped paying and filed bankruptcy in 2009 and the bank still has not foreclosed. If you are still dwelling there, two years for free (except for the association) is a good thing. If you move out and pay rent somewhere, two years of still paying that home owner association-that’s a real frustration. When people talk to me about filing bankruptcy and giving up the house, I tell them, don’t move out! If you have already moved out, rent it! Before therecent economic crisis mortgage companies were quick to foreclose. Five months after you stopped paying, you were foreclosed. In the sixth month, if you hadn’t moved out, you would be evicted. Filing bankruptcy right before the foreclosure would get you three more months, but that’s all. This still happens but a lot of times it doesn’t. There’s no way to see the future when the foreclosure will happen. Some of the reasons foreclosures are slow have been in the news. The whole loan modification thing paperwork problems the fact that the foreclosure lawyers can’t keep up with the volume. Some delay is just an investment decision by the mortgage companies. Suppose there are thirty houses in a little neighborhood and ten of those had mortgages with a bank I’ll call Big Bank. Two of those ten have already filed bankruptcy and gone to foreclosure. Big Bank fixed one up and sold it; the other is sitting empty. Seven are current; and the last one is yours-you just filed bankruptcy and you are five months behind. You and your eight neighbors owe $225,000 on the mortgage and the last house Galaxy fixed up and actually sold went for $110,000. The best offer they have on the one sitting empty was $101,000 and they figure if they have to sell your house too they’d be lucky to get $95,000. Well, $95,000 is better than nothing, right? Not necessarily. Big Bank is worried about your seven neighbors who are still paying. Those families ask themselves, every month or maybe every week, why are we still paying a $225,000 mortgage on a $110,000 house? When your house sells for $95,000, Big Bank figures one of your seven neighbors will say, that’s it! That neighbor stops paying, files bankruptcy, and now they have another house on their hands. Big Bank would rather have you sit in your house, for a while, then tell everyone in the neighborhood that the houses they thought were worth $110,000 have now dropped down to $95,000. Now I said at the beginning, you should not move out until there has been a foreclosure. As your bankruptcy lawyer, that’s easy for me to say; it’s harder for you to do. Because you need to have a place to live lined up. But if you panic and move out before you have to, you could end up paying the association on an empty house for another six months or a year. Paul Benson is an attorney in Utah who practices Bankruptcy his web site is www.paulbensonlaw.com
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