FROM MY BLOG I RECIEVED THIS QUESTION:

Andy, I work with senior homeowners 62 or older that are facing foreclosure. I get the banks to reduce the principle balance and pay that off with a reverse mortgage. Most of my clients are on fixed incomes and can’t afford an attorney or mortgage audit. As a mortgage banker I can go through the loan documents to look for respa, tilia and other violations. How do I obtain the documents from a: the servicer B; the original lender and C; the closing title company? This gives me additional leverage against the banks.

MY ANSWER:
This is a great question.  Thank you.  I have been wanting to post on this subject.

A. The Current Servicer:

To compel the current loan servicer to send you the documents, you would want to have your client send a QWR (Qualified Written Request).

Here is information from HUD on a QWR:
http://www.hud.gov/offices/hsg/sfh/res/reslettr.cfm rel=.

Here is the RESPA code that shows a consumers right to make inquiry to lenders:
http://www.hud.gov/offices/hsg/sfh/res/resp2605.cfm

If you google “sample qualified written request” you will find sample examples including these ones:
http://uslenderaudit.com/sample_qualified_written_request_letter
http://www.selegal.org/Foreclosure%20counseling.pdf

These samples will give you a good general format of a how a qualified written request might be worded and include correct formating according to the US Code.  Rewrite these as necesary to suite your clients needs.

B. The original lender:
The QWR doesn’t apply to previous lenders, investors or servicers according to my reading of it. It only applies to the current servicer.  Your client or you with proper authorization, can legally request copies of the original records from the loan originator or mortgage broker.

C. The closing title company:
To request the original title company you will need your client to sign a letter authorizing you to request this information. Then you can request that the title company furnish you with copies of the records that they do have.  Hopefully your client can remember the title company that they used. Different states have different laws regarding record retention period so depending on when the loan was closed you might have trouble here.

There are numerous benefits to the QWR other than just getting the original paperwork and verifying your lenders math. I will be posting more extensively on the QWR at http://estopforeclosure.com/blog

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Andy Morris is an expert short sale Realtor in North Eastern Ohio and a loss mitigation expert. He offers a helpful 7 part video lesson with tools to assist you in getting out of foreclosure. You can request this here.

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Hello, welcome to day 7 of the free trial version of Short Sale Your Home and Get Paid to do it home study course. Today we’re going to be talking about the 30 Days To Sheriff Sale Emergency Quick Start Plan. If you have 30 days or less before your house is scheduled to be auctioned off and this constitutes an emergency. You have to do something quick to start a short sale and if necessary you need to also consider and start researching immediately ways to delay the sheriff sale further, so you can actually do a short sale.

The first thing that you do in an emergency situation is call your lender. When you reach someone if possible ask to be talk to or be transferred to the loss mitigation department or the department that handles short sales.
Once you have found the best person that seems to know they are talking about, you want to let them know that you’ll have an offer very soon. Ask “What are the requirements to submit an offer in order to get a short sale acceptance.” Create a check list based on what they say.

Your lender is going to tell you a few things that you may need to submit a short sale offer. But for sure you’ll need the following things. You’re going to need a purchase agreement. In a minute we will talk about how to find a buyer in a jiffy. You’ll also need a HUD 1 which is a settlement statement that’s required to be used by all title companies and closing attorneys when they close the sale of a home. It shows all the details of a real estate sales transaction.

The first thing you need to do after you have found out the banks requirements is to find a title company. You might say something like, “Hi, I’m looking for a title company to help me in the sale of my home doing a short sale and I have a few questions for you. Can you do a title peak?” A title peak is a quick view of the title to see if, at first glance, there appears to be any liens on my property. You’d be surprised of what can pop up and attach to your property. You want to know about these things as quickly as possible. They can typically do a 5 minute search for free and tell you exactly what’s happening on your property. You also want to ask them, “hey I have an offer [or I’m getting ready to have an offer] and I need the bank to evaluate it, but before I do that, I need a preliminary HUD 1 net sheet. Can you help me prepare one if I give you the offer? If they say yes, great you have a title company.

How do you find the buyer? I told you I’d help you find one in a jiffy. There are thousands of ready, willing, and able buyers. The only reason they need in order to make an offer on your home is if they have the opportunity to get a good deal. They don’t need you to spend beautify it or spend thousands of dollars doing all sorts of repairs, like most Realtors are going to ask you to do in order to make it retail ready. All they want to know is “May I have an opportunity to get a good deal on your property.”
It benefits you to work with these people because they’re offering you the opportunity to be able to get out of your house with the least damage to your credit and also they’re your one opportunity to use a sale to help delay the foreclosure on your property.

During the period that you are negotiating the short sale you’ll have time to possibly find a better offer as well. Essentially an investor buyer will help you do what you need to do in order to arrange your finances properly. So how do you find this crappy low buyer that’s going to low ball your house? One of the best ways is on the internet. Do a Google search for “I buy houses”, “we buy houses” or “home investors”, you can also search for specific cities like if you live in San Diego, Can you can say “San Diego we buy houses.” You want to look for someone who’s willing to make a cash offer on your property. You don’t necessarily need someone who is a foreclosure investor, especially if you’re planning on handling the negotiation of the short sale on your own home. All you need is someone that has cash and is willing to make a quick offer even if its probably going to low.

The other thing you can do is visit Craigslist.org. Pick your city go to the services section and go to real estate. You’ll find a lot of Realtors and people offering various real estate services. Some of these may be great services, but there are specifically looking for adds that say, “we buy houses” and or “cash offers for homes.” Go after those people and see what they can offer. Along the same line you can go to your local newspaper and check out the real estate wanted section. Typically there’s a bunch of “we buy houses” ads and stop foreclosure ads and real estate wanted ads, so you can call some of those people and see how they work and see if they can put an offer on your property. Also you can check out the for sale section and look for numbers that re-appear over and over again. Especially rent to own ads. If it is not a Realtor then it’s probably an investor. Talk to to these people and see if they’re interested in your property. Keep your eyes open. In the next week you’re going to see “we buy houses” on bus stops, TV ads saying “we buy ads” and “I buy houses” billboards.

You want a buyer that’s going to pay cash. Ask them how they’re getting their cash. Make sure they offer proof they can actually buy your property with a bank statement or letter from their banker. Let them know you need this in order to present it with their offer to the bank. Often times banks do require what’s called a proof of funds. So just ask them for that, to make sure that your buyers qualified. As long as your buyer is qualified there is no reason to turn down an offer. Just accept the offer with the following line written in the contract. You will always write in a contract, hand written on the front page with big ugly blue pen the following “This offer is contingent on bank acceptance of short sale and forgiveness of debt. All title and escrow will be performed by XYZ title company.” Insert your title company name. Initial next to that and have the buyer initial as well. This phrase will now supersede the offer and it protects you if the bank doesn’t offer you the terms you need in order to close the short sale and feel good about it. If for some reason the bank doesn’t give you really good terms for a short sale letter it’s your option not to continue the short sale and the buyer can’t force you to go through with it.

Once you have this offer you can put it together with the packet you’ve compiled and present it to the title company and have them create a correlating HUD 1 that matches the contract. Then you submit it the bank along with the required hardship information.

Once you’ve submitted to the lender you want to follow up every 24 to 48 hours to see how things are going and you want to make sure that the lender sends somebody out to value the property. The lender valuation, also known as the Brokers Price Opinion (or BPO) is actually the most essential part of the entire short sale process. There’s a whole set of things that you can do to influence how that value comes out, which for this introductory course is a little too much to talk about. In the full Short Sale Your Home and Get Paid course I talk in depth about all the ways to make sure that the BPO value supports your offer.

Now I want to talk about what happens after you have gotten your offer, you’ve gotten a BPO value, your lender has evaluated the offer and they’ve accepted it. They are going to give you something called an acceptance letter. In the letter that they give you, it’s going to spell out all of the details of the short sale and what they’re accepting and how they’re going to do it. There’ll be terms for whether the deficiency is forgiven or not. If you see something that says, “this is a settlement” or “this will be marked as paid in full on your credit” then typically that means that your debt is going to be forgiven. The amount of money that comes from this sale and goes to the bank is going to actually pay off the loan. If you see the phrase “lien release,” then be very careful. The phrase “lien release” means the mortgage or trust deed may be released but unless other wise stated you may still be obligated to pay on the short sale defficiency. Sometimes they will try and collect and sometimes they won’t. If you’re filing chapter 7 bankruptcies or have already, then a lien release is just fine chapter 7 removes all your personal obligations any ways.

I always advise that you have an attorney review the short sale letter.

In addition to negotiating how the deficiency is handled there are other terms that can be negotiated as well. One term that is definitely negotiable is the you have to close. Very often your buyer will need more time than the lender offers in order to close. Banks don’t want to take back the property and they will typically give you almost has much time as you need to get things closed. They’ll tell you they won’t but when they understand that it’s not going to close anyways they will always give it to you because they want it to close.

Understand that short sale letters are negotiable sometimes. Other times there they’re completely non negotiable. For a lot of the bigger investors like Fannie May and Freddy Mac, and some of the bigger servicers, the short sale letter is a standard legal letter and it really can’t be changed outside of special circumstances. It may also be worth while try to negotiate how the short sale will be reported on your credit report. Ideally you would request that the loan will be reported as having been paid in full and that it all payments will be reported retroactively as having been made on time. You can ask for things like that and its always worth you asking.

Below on this page (see the actual lesson- get Immediate access to video and lesson resources by opting at the bottom of this page) I show an PDF example of a pay off letter before negotiation and then afterwards with the language changed protecting my client from deficiency collection. I also show several other payoff letters so you can get a better idea of what you can expect for various lenders.

If you think a short sale is for you then your homework is to call your lender and ask them what the requirements are for a short sale. Till we talk again… good bye.

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Welcome to day 6 of the trial version of short sale of your home and get paid to do it. Today we’re going to talk about the number one way to have your short sale be tabled by a lender and never be completed and we’re going to talk about how to make sure that, that does not happen and how to make sure your home is your lenders top priority.

First I want to talk about the loss mitigators that will be handling your short sale request. Loss mitigators are extremely busy people because of the foreclosure crises in this country.

The typical loss mitigator currently has over 200 files on their desk. When you send your short sale packet in, with your offer, typically the entire packet is going to have between 20 to 60 pages of paper work. It’s going to come through the fax and it will be assigned to a person, who is so over worked that they probably aren’t even getting to all of the files assigned to them. That person gets a ton of angry mean calls from realtors, attorneys, sellers, buyers, non profit groups and various other people who have a stake in the deal. They’re completely overwhelmed.

Because of this it is extremely important that you send in a complete packet. If you, for any reason at all, send in a packet that is either incomplete or even looks like its incomplete that packet is going to go in the trash or more likely it’s going to go at the very bottom of a stack of 200 other files. It may never be looked at again, and you won’t get your calls returned because that person is dealing with other more important files that are complete and ready to go.

It is also essential that you have a complete file that looks complete.  Her is one of the ways that you can make sure that your file not only is complete but also looks complete.  Your lender requires that certain items be in your hardship package.  For instance, typically your lenders are going to require that you include verification of income like pay stubs.  However let’s say that you don’t have any income and that is why you’re in foreclosure.  If you just skip that item your packet will look incomplete.  However let’s say that you write a note on the cover sheet saying that “I don’t have the any pay stubs.”  It’s a good thing to make a note that you don’t have it, but what you really need to do before sending in the packet is to include a complete explanation on a separate piece of paper.  Write it with big old writing filling up the entire 8.5 by 11 sheet.  If you are explaining the lack of pay stubs you would write as a heading, “Explanation of why I don’t have a pay stub.” Your explanation would be, “I DON’T HAVE A JOB.” Just let it fill the entire sheet of paper and stick that in your packet because then it will be a place holder in that packet and you now have a document in place of that absent document that will indicate that the file is complete. That’s extremely important.  I have had loss mitigators actually call me and tell me if that if I don’t do it like I just described that can’t get me an approval.  So I always do it.  It really helps illustrate that a packet is complete, and its ready to be worked on.

The more complete your packet is the better it looks, the quicker that it’s going to be processed and the more likely it is that someone is going to want to work with you to complete your short sale packet and it won’t languish.  To make sure they’ve received your complete package when you’re faxing a packet in, you need to make sure that you hand write on every single page of the packet the loan number.  Another thing you can do to make sure your package is received all in one piece is to overnight it instead of faxing it.  When you overnight a package you can make sure that the quality is there.  You can also make sure that the package stays together.   If it’s in a fax machine it could get divided up when it comes out of the fax.  Someone could grab it and it not divided it up properly.  That’s the reason why you write the loan number on every page, but pages still go missing.  If you overnight it someone gets to feel important by walking over and signing for it.   Also you have the opportunity to do things like possibly include a little shameless bribe.   You could write a quick note inside there on post-it note and stick in a gift card to local restaurant nearby they bank.  Include a $25 gift certificate to Pizza Hut and tell them to go ahead and order the office pizza or their cubicle mates pizza.  That will make them remember you and hopefully that will mean your file gets priority.  These are just a few of the things that I talk about to help you make sure your short sale is successful.  For homework today I want you to study the list of all the things that should be in your file and start preparing those.  If you plan on doing any kind of loss mitigation, whether it’s a short sale or any kind of payment plan, you’re going to have to have these things ready.  I’ll see you tomorrow when we talk about 30 day’s to the foreclosure sale emergency short sale guide.

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Welcome to day 4 of the trial version of Short Sale your Home and Get Paid course.  Today we’re going to talk about the best way to file an answer if you live in a judicial foreclosure state. I talked about filing an answer in the delay strategies in the last lesson and I wanted to go into more detail because this is a practical thing you can do that may very well give you 30 to 90 days extra time.  Please remember that I am not an attorney and pretty much have to advise you to run everything you do by an attorney.  I do give you a sample answer which you will see in a link below this video (if you are a subscriber), but it will be well worth your time and money to have an attorney draw you up an answer.

When you draft an answer you can either do it with a bunch of legalese and actually answer every numbered paragraph on your summons, point-by-point or you can kind of put it more in a letter form and just talk about your hardship, explain everything that’s happened, what you’re doing to correct the situation, and of course ask for more time.

You could also do a kind of hybrid version where you answer the points on the summons and then explain a little bit of your situation and ask for more time. By telling a story you can paint yourself as a poor, unsophisticated person, who has been taken advantage of by a big mean bank. The idea being that you pull on the empathy strings of the judge or magistrate that would be reading that answer. A more formal style however might get more precise results.

In the foreclosure packet there will be numbered sections which I just eluded to.  They set the facts as the plaintiff sees them and then ask for a judgment based on those facts by the judge or magistrate.  In a formal answer you would typically address each numbered section, as a single fact and answer whether you, one, agree or two, disagree, with that fact.  Based on your answers for each numbered section you would then state your conclusion or plea, to the judge at the end of the formal answer.  In the sample answer which you can download from the link below, you can see I included a little phrase, “Deny for lack of knowledge.”  You can say that you deny any fact for a “lack of knowledge” even if you have the slightest doubt about the smallest part of that section. So even if you’re not totally sure about something you can deny that.  The plaintiff will then be forced to come back before the court with actual documentation proving their assertions.  That can take time and it keeps the lenders attorneys from using the automated assembly line approach to foreclosure.  So if you agree with all the facts and agree with what the plaintiff is asking for, or, if you simply don’t answer at all, your case will go to default judgment.  A default judgment simply means that it is a judgment by default for the plaintiff because nothing is needed to be proved or argued because you didn’t argue anything.  Typically if your case is expedited and goes straight to default judgment the process to foreclosure in the Cleveland area is 5-7 months from start to finish.  Other local areas will differ time wise from as short as 4 months to as long as 18 months.

After you answer each numbered section you would ask for something that benefits you based on your answer.   In the example answer I include here I state, “Wherefore defendant asks that the plaintiffs complaint be dismissed.”  I asked that the plaintiffs complaint be dismissed on that example, however you could also possibly say something like “Defendant wants to avoid another foreclosure in X county, is attempting to sell property and has listed it with the local licensed real-estate agent, wherefore, defendant asks that plaintiffs complaint be delayed for 90 days while defendant attempts to sell property and pay plaintiff amount due.”

After you’ve completed your answer you would simply file that with your county clerk of courts office.  Filing should be completely free for you.  You may want to check with the clerk of courts office to see if they have any extra bits of advice they can offer you.  Usually you can file your answer by simply mailing it to the clerk of courts office, but call and ask first. Otherwise you have to go to the clerk of courts office and file it in person.

Also make sure you insert your name and plaintiff attorneys name.  Obviously don’t make the mistake of leaving some of the specific bits of information that are currently on the sample answer I provide.  Change it to your situation with the proper case number, proper court name and make sure you mail a copy of it to the plaintiffs attorney as well.

In addition to this sample answer, I also have a sample continuance, you would file it the day the first hearing is set. This could easily buy you an extra 30 to 90 days as well.  As always please give me your questions and comments below, I’ll attempt to answer them as best as possible and I’ll see you in the next lesson.

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Welcome to day of the trial version of sort sale your home and get paid course, today we’re going to be talking about ways to extend the time you have in foreclosure. I’ve come up with over 15 different ways and if for some reason you found one that I haven’t included and fill in the feedback down at the bottom of this page to let me know. I’m going to talk about these different ways but I want to make it clear that I don’t condone all of these activities for all instances. By using these strategies you may be able to buy yourself some more time for your particular situation. Remember I’m not an attorney, the only legal advice I’m giving you is to check with an attorney for legal advice.

This information is for educational purposes only and you should always consult with an attorney first and by the way making sure you consult with an attorney.
Delay foreclosure technique number 1- The first and probably one of the more well known ways of delaying a foreclosure is chapter 7 bankruptcy. Any kind of bankruptcy will immediately stop your foreclosure where ever it is. A chapter 7 bankruptcy will actually dissolve all debt and absolve you of the responsibility to pay your debt. It will temporarily delay foreclosure with the US bankruptcy court. Usually it will buy up to 45 to 75 days, sometimes more sometimes less depending on your local foreclosure system and your local bankruptcy court judge as well.

Delay foreclosure technique number 2- The second way of delaying is chapter 13 bankruptcy. This type of bankruptcy reorganizes your debt and creates a payment plan. The most recent law changes mean that more people will be forced to file this type of bankruptcy. If you were to simply file this bankruptcy but never make the payments it will still buy you has much as 45 to 75 days and sometimes even more. Again it differs from municipality to municipality. If you make payments according to the plan and properly include mortgage debt in the bankruptcy you should be able to permanently stop foreclosure, however, I warned you in lesson one of that typically a chapter 13 payment plan is not realistic. It is very difficult to be successful with a chapter 13. However it will force your lender into a payment plan.

Delay foreclosure technique number 3- Another way that people use to delay foreclosure is what I call a “hybrid bankruptcy solution.” You want to check with an attorney on this but it is where you could actually file a string of bankruptcies to increase the time even more. Typically you can’t file one bankruptcy after another. However I have known people who mixed it up a little bit. For example a husband could file Chapter 13 and delay the foreclosure. Then when that gets kicked out of bankruptcy court and is days from the foreclosure sale he could file Chapter 7 bankruptcy and delay it more. Then when that gets kicked out of bankruptcy court and is approaching the sale date the wife could do the same thing filing Chapter 13 and Chapter 7 strategically. Such a strategy used by itself has been known to delay foreclosure for more than a year of extra time. Obviously there are attorney fees involved but what’s an attorneys fee when you didn’t have to make your house payment.

Delay foreclosure technique number 4- File a written answer in the court system, asking for more time. You need to do that as soon as you get notice of legal action. This could easily buy you an additional 30 to 60 or more days. If you don’t file a answer typically the case goes straight to default judgment and the foreclosing lender doesn’t even have to prove the facts of the case which makes it much cheaper, easier and quicker for the plaintiff.

Delay foreclosure technique number 5- Related to the technique number 4 is the filing of a continuance. You would file a continuance after the first hearing is scheduled. A continuance like all court documents should probably be filed by an attorney. A continuance is simply a request that the judge or magistrate give you more time because you need to prepare for the case or your attorney can’t make that date or other reasonable excuses. You can do a continuance pro se, however an attorney would know how to do it properly in your situation. If you do do it pro se you might want to examine some similar cases in the local court house and learn about how other people have filed the same paper work. An attorney might be willing to write it up for you for cheap. That at the least would be a good thing.

Delay foreclosure technique number 6- Technique number six is something that I especially don’t recommend however it is an idea for you to look into. I’m trying to give you as many options as possible so that you can find a useful solution. This is called switch the deed. Again make sure you ask an attorney about this because of the legal implications. I know of people that have gotten a blank quick claim deed from a legal forms company and just used that to deed their property to someone else or to add someone else to the ownership. The court will then typically require the plaintiffs to basically start over and notify the new owner of record about the foreclosure action. You want to be careful about this if it’s just simply to delay things it could be construed as contempt of court or something similar to that. I’m not an attorney but I can see that there’ll be issues with that. Someone might not like it too much.

Delay foreclosure technique number 7- Another strategy  that I know has worked in the past is for a defendant to challenge the sheriff’s appraisal. Once your property has worked all the way through the court process and they’ve scheduled a sheriff sale typically the sheriff appraises the property for the purposes of auctioning it off. The property is then auctioned off and the starting minimum bid is for a certain percentage of that appraisal amount. You could challenge that appraisal and make a case to the sheriff and/ or the judge that, “hey you appraised it wrong so you need to go out and re-appraise it. I think it should be X price because of this , this , and this. You need to go re-appraise it and reschedule the sale because it’s been appraised wrong and you’ve advertised it for this price. Otherwise I am going to suffer a loss because of your mistake.” This has worked in the past and it’s something you could try if you think it’s something that would apply in your situation.

Delay foreclosure technique number 8 & 9- The 8th way to delay your foreclosure is through payment plans like forbearances and low modifications. Banks will delay or stop foreclosure when you go to do a loan work out and plan to start making payments. Loan modifications are harder to get and will usually completely stop the foreclosure. It typically will actually stop the foreclosure and move the back payments to the end of the loan. A forbearance plan is easier to get but only pauses the foreclosure until you’re completely caught up which means there will be less of a delay. Also typically a forbearance includes unrealistically high payments. Also you’re more likely to need a significant amount of money to start the forbearance plan. Either one of these though if you’re able to get into them could allow you some extra breathing room to delay things until you can do a short sale or take other action.

Delay foreclosure technique number 10- If you’re planning on selling your house and you have an offer, technique number ten would be to tell the bank that you have an offer. Simply call up the bank and in an urgent tone of voice explain that they need to delay the foreclosure process because you have an offer for them that’s going to pay them off. You may need to call the pay off department rather than customer service or the loss mitigation department. My associates and I seen bank halt sheriff sales and delay the foreclosure process numerous times because of this and I know of one title agent that would do this routinely. She would call up the banks for her clients and tell them, “hey we have an offer. we have cash to pay you off don’t foreclose on this.” She would even make the call when the offer would not cover the entire amount and the bank often times would stop the sale with out even asking the amount of the offer. Then after it was pushed off they could work a short sale. So the call could be a plor or it could be legit but either way, it’s an opportunity to get the foreclosure process slowed or stopped.

Delay foreclosure technique number 11- Use a non profit organization as an advocate with the court, the media, the sheriff and your lender. In our area there is a group called ESOP that has had amazing success at using all sorts of tools at their disposal to delay or stopping foreclosure or getting special benefits for their clients. The good thing about this is that most non profits are free. The bad thing is that right now they tend to be busy and overworked.

Delay foreclosure technique number 12- Defend the foreclosure- I have recommended in previous lessons and this one to get an attorney. I realize if you are in foreclosure it might not be financially feasible to retain an attorney. You should have an attorney no matter what technique you are using so that you can have quality advice that keeps you out trouble and puts you in a better position. You need someone you can trust. There are attorneys that specialize in foreclosure defense. A good attorney can rip to pieces most of the foreclosure complaints put together by lender attorneys because most of those complaints are put together in foreclosure factories with form letters by underpaid paralegals. They only work because no one challenges them so they work by default. Usually there is some I that is not dotted and at some point due process is not followed. I have seen attorneys delay foreclosure cases for years with out even using bankruptcy. One of my client’s attorneys just had a case thrown out of court almost with out trying. That was after 4 months of the law suit. Now the lender has to start all over again. Interestingly enough the lender suddenly got real motived to do a short sale with my client. We just received a call from the office of the president of this large bank wanting to get a short sale approved immediately.

Delay foreclosure technique number 13- Recently I’ve seen cases where attorneys challenge the right of a plaintiff to sue based on jurisdiction. The attorney argued that since the foreclosing lender was based out of state that they should be suing in federal court. This got thrown out of the common pleas court and the plaintiff was forced to refile in federal court.

Delay foreclosure technique number 14- I’ve seen defense attorneys challenge the right of a plaintiff to sue based on the fact that they could not prove that the plaintiff actually owned the mortgage. This could stall the case indefinitely or at least until they can trace back from all the servicer transfers and the sale of the mortgage from one investor to the other, to find the original signed document that says that you, the borrower, actually owes the money. In some cases that document does not exist. There has actually been federal judges that have totally eliminated the mortgage balances because they couldn’t prove that the defendant actually owed that amount of money. If you’re planning on doing this type of suit you probably want to find some attorney that has experience doing this and has successfully done so. I will be putting attorney referrals on estopforeclosure.com or you can go to findlaw.com to find such an attorney.

Delay foreclosure technique number 15- Finally, there are thousands of state and federal rules that a lender must abide by as they lend money. There are so many that it’s nearly impossible to faithfully fulfill all the necessary requirements. There are attorneys that specialize in exploiting auditing your loan documentation and bringing law suits against against lenders. If you’re attorney makes a good case your debt could be erased, but most likely your attorney could at least delay a judicial or even a non judicial foreclosure and very often lower the balance of the loan a significant amount (note- I am currently working with one law firm that audits mortgages for compliance with federal law. They have had significant success at lowering balances and slowing/ stopping foreclosure. Email me at andy@eSTOPforeclosure.com for more info). Suing your lender will always motivate your lender to be more aggressive about offering you a reasonable short sale settlement or even better option to keep your house.

That’s 15 ways that you can possibly stop foreclosure and I want you to think if you have any other ways that I missed. if there are any ways I will be glad to include those ways and give you credit for it. Just fill out the comment form at the bottom of this page and let me know. Before you go, take action and jot a reminder to follow up on the methods that would work best for you based on your situation. Until next lesson I wish you a wonderful life.

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How much time do I have until the foreclosure or sheriff sale?

Hi welcome to day three of the of the Short Sale Your Home and Get Paid free internet test drive. Today we are going to be talking about how much time you have and how to find out how much time you have. This is a very important question that has probably drilled itself into your mind if you are in foreclosure. Many people at least if their state does judicial foreclosures will get a packet from their lenders attorney. They read the packet and they think they have to move out in 30 days. That’s very common from where I am (Cuyahoga County Ohio) because the packet will mention an answer must be filed with in 30 days and they think that means they have 30 days to move out before the house is sold.

If you’ve been in foreclosure for some time already you know that isn’t the case. The time between the date of the first foreclosure action is to the date you would actually be evicted from your home varies widely from state to state. It even varies significantly from county to county within the state.

Ordinarily it would take about 90 to 120 days from your first missed payment for the first foreclosure action by your lender. But this again varies widely from bank to bank. Currently foreclosure times will range from 6 months from the first missed payments to 18 months from the first missed payment.

It would be very rare to ever have your house go completely to foreclosure in less than 6 months from the very first day you miss your payment. A short sale typically take 90+ days from the time you start marketing to get the offer to actually getting acceptance of short sale from your lender and closing the sale. So if you figure that you have less than 90 days to do a short sale you’re going to have to use one of the delay tactics that I discuss in the next lesson.

Whether you’re selling or keeping your house you need to know how much time you have in your situation so that you can take informed action. Here’s how to find out how much time it takes to foreclose in your state.

1. Find where the sheriff sales, trustee sales or foreclosure sales are listed in your area. Sometimes those are listed in the newspaper. Try Googling “cuyahoga county sheriff sale” or “san diego trustee sale.”

2. Since my list had a case number I recorded the case numbers and the sale dates on two spread sheet columns for about 15 different listings. The more listings you research the more accurately you will understand the foreclosure time frame you are researching.

3. You then need to find out where foreclosures are filed and look up the filing dates for each address. In a judicial foreclosure state you you could try google for “cuyahoga county clerk of courts” because the clerk of court keeps all the records for the common please court. If you are in a trust deeds state usually the there is a notice of default filed with the local recorders office. So you can search notice of default along with your city or county and / or recorders office along with your county. If all else fails call your local county office and ask where foreclosures are filed.

4. Once you have researched the filing dates for all the addresses you can use the formulas feature to calculate the average times from foreclosure filing to foreclosure sale. I demonstrate how to do this in my actual free video tutorial and I discuss in detail how to interpret the results.

I want to deal with one of the questions today, how much time do you need in order to work a short sale? Short sales take a lot of time. Some times as long as six months. However it is always worth a try even if you only have a few days until foreclosure sale. I will explain more about that later.

Some people have also asked me can I do short sale even if the lender has started foreclosing on me. The answer to that question is, absolutely yes. A lot of people think that they can’t sell their home after they’ve been sued by their lender for foreclosure and so they just walk away and do nothing and let their home foreclose and be repossessed. The lender would be extremely happy to see you sell it and do a short sale as opposed to them having to take it back. In fact many lenders will not even allow you to do a short sale until you’re 90 days behind when they start foreclosing you anyways. So yes absolutely; lenders actually get more motivated when they start to foreclose on you.

Your homework for today is to go find out how much time it takes to foreclose in your area. I have a page that shows the times researched by HUD for foreclosures in different states but these times are changing all the time and they vary within the state so it may make sense for you to get a better idea exactly how much time it takes in your state and in your county to do a foreclosure. Go ahead and follow the process if you need to go back to the video that I just showed you and do that and I’ll see you tomorrow.

Post your foreclosure times on the comments section below. Thanks.

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Benefits and draw backs of a short sale.

Hi and welcome to day two of the free test drive of the Short Sale Your Home and Get Paid to do it home study course. Hi I’m Andy Morris and today I want to go over the question: Is a short sale right for you? Today will be a little shorter than yesterday, and I’m not going over so many options. I’m just going to cover pluses and minuses of doing a short sale.

The benefits of a short sale are the following:

• Short sale benefit #1- Credit good faith- You show good faith when you apply for credit in the future. When a potential creditor looks back and sees that that you did a short sale they can see that you took proactive action to get out of a common situation. Although the FICO score is proprietary, evidence shows that in general a short sale will be similar to a 90 day late as to the affect it has on your your credit immediately. It will typically lower your score by 150 points and it will dip down and slowly dissipate in the following months as opposed to say 250 points that would be the typical credit score drop down if your home is actually repossessed. If your home is reposessed not only will your score typically drop more but that notation will typically effect your score negatively for a longer period of time.
• Short sale benefit #2- Future mortgages- Underwriter rules are changing to overwhelmingly favor the person who does a short sale as a opposed to have their house foreclose. When you go to apply for a loan in the future, for instance, Fannie Mae has now made a rule that an otherwise qualified borrower can not get a mortgage with them if he or she has lost his or her home to foreclosure in the last 5 years. However if if a prospective borrower did a short sale he or she will only have to wait 2 years. Fannie Mae is probably the biggest lender in the country, or the biggest mortgage holder in the country.
• Short sale benefit #3- Avoid a defficiency judgement- Also as far as a short sale goes, you have the opportunity to negotiate and avoid a deficiency collection. This gives you the opportunity when you do a short sale to be able to talk with the lender about the outcome of that deficiency judgment that could come against you. Typically you can get that forgiven and move on free of mortgage debt. However if you let it go to foreclosure you don’t have that same negotiation opportunity and why would a lender even want to work with you after you let it go. They may as well come after you for the difference or keep it on your credit.
• Short sale benefit #4- Save your dignity- Doing a short sale is a dignified way to sell your house. It’s much more dignified than just letting it be sold at the auction steps in a public way that is  publicly advertised… so it’s a much better way to go.
• Short sale benefit #5- Benefit financially- If you use my method for short selling your house there is a potential to get paid for your efforts in several different ways and possibly get some of your unsecured debt paid off as well. The drawbacks of a short sale are the following because I don’t want to just tell you a positive of doing a short sale so you buy my course.

The following are potential short sale drawbacks:

• Short sale drawback #1- Hard work and lots of follow up- I want you to understand that there’s a lot of hard work and intense follow up to do a short sale.
• Short sale drawback #2- Your credit may still suck- Just because you do a short sale your credit is not necessarily going to be hunky dory and immediately jump back to that pre-foreclosure, “I can go any amount of money for any thing I want at any time I want” credit score. If you missed payments those missed payments are going to be on your credit report unless you can somehow negotiate that out which you may be able to if you ask for it. My Short Sale Your Home and Get Paid home study course includes a section on this. Typically you’re still going to have a hit on your credit from doing a short sale.
• Short sale drawback #3- May not work in your situation- There will be times when because of your requirements a short sale simply will not work for you. It could be that you don’t have enough time to do a short sale and we’ll talk about time frames in the next two video lessons. It could be that for whatever reason a short sale does not end up working for you.
• Short sale drawback #4- Tax consequences- Also something to consider is that any time that there’s a forgiven debt or written off debt that a bank is required to report that to the IRS just as if you had made that money as income. They would report it in a 1099, and this could happen with a short sale deficiency or even if it ends up being a deficiency after it goes to foreclosure. The tax consequences in a foreclosure situation should always be discussed with a knowledgeable advisor and there are many ways to get around this and so you should discuss it with a knowledgeable tax advisor. Just recently in 2007 congress did pass a law that allows you not to have to claim this as income. This law applies to people who actually lived in their home before it was foreclosed or sold on a short sale. If you are insolvent or filed a chapter 7 bankruptcy typically that would allow you not to have to pay taxes on from the forgiven debt as well. Depending on your tax basis and the actual numbers you may be able to write off the loss from selling your house against the 1099 income from debt forgiveness as well. There are other ways to not have to pay taxes on forgiven debt so I can’t emphasize enough the need to work with a competent accountant.
• Another drawback is that you have to disclose to a buyer that this is a short sale for they make an offer, so you won’t be able to completely hide that this is in foreclosure. You probably have gotten a bunch of letters anyways from people if it’s actually gone to the point of foreclosure. So it won’t be completely private anyways. A short sale is something that you can do in a dignified way to get your home sold have the least negative effects.

A bonus benefit to short sales that I didn’t mention is that you can combine a short sale with a lease option, so you can sell a house to somebody and have them lease option it back to you. Now you want to make sure that your letter of acceptance given to you by your bank to do a short sale doesn’t specifically say that you can’t do a lease option back. FHA loans for example have provision that says you can’t sell your house on a short sale to any friend or family member or person with whom you have an outside arrangement with.

I worked with client who was referred to me by a loan officer. She owed $145,000 on a house, which was probably worth $105,000 at the time. I was able to negotiate the price all the way down to $85,000 and her husband was actually going to purchase it. However, she ended up backing out of the transaction at the last second because the lender offered her a loan modification plan that was more certain to her than her husband’s new FHA loan that he was getting. It’s to bad she didn’t complete the transaction because the household debt would have been lowered by over $60,000. Instead she chose to continue making payments on the $140,000 which is admirable.

Your homework question today is to consider the following: Based on these benefits and drawbacks is a short sale something you should pursue?

Please leave your questions and comments regarding this transcript and or video content below and I will do my best to answer or reply! Thanks:)

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Foreclosure options for delaying foreclosure

If you have chosen to move you have plenty of options. You may want to use a delay option along with any of the move options to facilitate a sale and to facilitate your move. A note regarding litigation which I mentioned in two of the previous strategies, if you do any kind of litigation it increases the motivation of the lender to work with you and suddenly you’re a much high priority because costs them money even if they win. Attorney time is very expensive for your lender and it just increases the loses that much more. Litigation is a good thing when you’re looking to do a short sale.

My foreclosure option #12- Sell with short sale- If if based on your current financial situation you really can’t afford the you will obviously be moving. If that is the case the short sale is your only other option than a voluntary or forced reposession. A short sale is a great option because it gives you the oppurtunity to negotiate your debt.

What is a short sale? A short sale is simply where your lender agrees to lower the balance so that your mortgage can be paid off and you can sell your home. This is especially necessary in areas where the market has fallen drastically. As of this writing that happens to be the case for much of the United States right now. When this happens people end up oweing much more than what their house is worth. If he or she has a financial situation then a short sale may be a sellers option.

Nearly every single lender in the U.S. can do a short sale. Most lenders have a department called the loss mitigation department that would handle all short sale requests. Sometimes short sales are handled by the collection department of your lender.

My foreclosure option #13- Sell with full pay off- Since we’re talking about all the options for moving, you could sell your house and maybe pay it off in full. If you don’t require a short sale there’s no need to do one, if the market hasn’t dropped below what you owe then you can afford to sell and pay everything off in full. Like option number one this is the obvious option and you don’t want to over look it.

My foreclosure option #14- Deed in lieu- Other moving options your lender may offer you include deed in lieu of foreclosure, the cash for keys program and/or a negotiated delayed move. A deed in lieu of foreclosure is simply when you sign the deed of your house back to your lender and move out. The main benefit for you is it shows good faith to your lender and you won’t have to be dragged through a long and drawn out foreclosure process. You can hope that your lender is more lenient if there is a deficiency after they sell the house themselves. However a deed in lieu has an identical effect on your credit as a foreclosure and you may end up being on the hook for the loss to the lender. You typically will not qualify for a deed in lieu if there are any othe liens like junior mortgages or judgements attaching to the property. Doing the deed in lieu may make you eligible for the for the cash for keys program or the negotiated delayed move program.

My foreclosure option #15- Cash for keys- Cash for keys is when is you move out and you give the bank the keys to the property and they give you a small amount of cash (500 to 1500). Don’t expect cash if you have allready moved out and given your lender the deed and the keys however if your lender accepts you for that program a little bit of extra cash could come in handy. A cash for keys program may be offered to you in combination with the deed in lieu of foreclosure or you may be offered a cash for keys program as an alternative to the bank having to evict you after having repossessed the house as a way to ensure that you have not damaged it.

My foreclosure option #16- Negotiated delayed move- A possible alternative to a cash for keys program is a negotiatied delayed move. It may be that someone in foreclosure has special circumstances like health issues and they need an extra month to move. Or a 90 year old women needs some time to arrange her stay in a nursing home. In special situations it is not uncommon for a lender to allow a delayed move especially for public relations reasons. This may not be something you are offered but if you think a solution like this could be justified you may want to ask for it.

Foreclosure option #16- Leave, do nothing and let it foreclose- We’ve talked about a lot of options here including a few obvious ones. You can obviously make the choice to leave, do nothing and just let your home foreclose. In fact you may have allready moved out and your home is headed to foreclosure. If this is the case you might as will make the extra effort to sell your house on a short sale. If you are just too busy and overwhelmed you could make this choice and it won’t kill you however you owe it to yourself and your credit to atleast turn it over to a short sale proffessional to let them work a short sale on it if you no longer live in your house.

Foreclosure option #17- Stay, do nothing, let it foreclose and get evicted by the bank- The benefit of this is free living and that is about all you get if you choose to stay in your home, do nothing about it, let it foreclose and then get evicted by the lender. You may want to atleast try and avoid a mess in your future by putting it on the market for a short sale a few months before it is to go to sale. This may even cause you to have some extra time to live in your home if your bank extends the foreclosure sale date so you can sell it. Obviously you will benefit more by doing something proactive. There are plenty of other options right here in this artcile that set you up for more success in life.

There you have it; I’ve talked about as many ways as I can think of to stay in your house, to sell your house and move, and strategies for delaying foreclosure on your house.

I’ve included some homework for you below so you actually get your value for this portion of this course. I want you fill out the hardship worksheet that I’ve included below in a link (note all this information is available to subscribers. Please subscribe to the free foreclosure help video course here). This work sheet is a Fannie Mae standard work sheet. Fannie Mae owns more loans than any entity in the United States so, it’s a standard work sheet, most lenders require something like it or this exact one and it will help you kind of come to a moment of truth. It’ll help you evaluate your own income. Also there’s an equity analysis here to kind of help you understand how much you owe and how much can you conservatively get out of this market. You also need to think about if your hardship long-term or short term hardship. It’s very easy to hope and believe that you can do something, but you don’t want to waste precious time, money and energy on path that is unfeasible. You simply cannot continue robbing from Peter to pay Paul if that is something you are doing.

If you’re completely done with your hardship and you just need a little help to get started making payments, then you want to pursue one of the keep your house options. One of the worst things that you can do is fight to keep a house that even when your hardship is over, there’s no way you can keep it because of the costs.

You need to understand that and just move ahead and make a proper decision based on your knowledge of what reality really is. Some questions for you are: Could you make the payment if your bank lender would just allow you to make payments with out having to catch up the arrearage? With your current income, could you immediately start making the original payment amount on your loan? Do you want to keep your home? Can you afford your home and still afford to eat? How many payments are you behind? Ask yourself these questions and write them out on paper. Do a little journaling to clear your mind so that you can make a good decision regarding all of your options. Follow up your decision with immediate action.

If you have decided a short sale may be a good option for you please consider Short Sale Your Home and Get Paid course. Even if you don’t plan on getting paid this is something that you could use to educate what ever proffessional you work and make sure your short sale is successful.

Please leave your questions and comments regarding this transcript and or video content below.  Thanks!

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Strategies for delaying foreclosure

Let’s cover some of the strategies for delaying foreclosure. There are many different ways to delay a foreclosure and I recommend that you combine these strategies along with the strategies for a stay in your house strategy or a move out of your house strategy that I have here. Delaying can be necessary when you are trying to figure out where to go or what to do next. Not to mention the fact that every extra day you can stay in your home it is a good thing. A future one of these free lessons will include over 15 different delay strategies that you can use to assist you in whatever you’re looking to do.

My foreclosure option #9- Delay foreclosure with chapter 7 bankruptcy- Chapter 7 bankruptcy wipes out all your debt and will also delay a foreclosure. It won’t completely stop it but it’ll allow you to stay in your house for the two to four months that it takes for the bankruptcy to be processeed. Because the mortgage attached to your house, and your house is like a person that cosigned on the loan, your lender can still collect against the house by foreclosure whether you file chapter 7 bankruptcy or not.

My foreclosure option #10- Delay foreclosure with a chapter 13 bankruptcy- I just discussed chapter 13 bankruptcy as a way of staying in your home however like I mentioned normally it doesn’t work out anyways. I have been told by a bankruptcy attorney that fewer than 10 percent of chapter 13 bankruptcy plans are ever completed. However chapter 13 bankruptcy can work great as a delay. If payments are not made it will at the minimum delay everything for the date that that you file the bankruptcy to the time it takes to drop back out and be released out of the bankruptcy for foreclosure. Typically this is a minimum of a 60 day delay and can end up being much more of delay depending where the foreclosure was in the local court system. Remember that a bankruptcy of any kind is a federal court process and it trumps any lower court process and will halt it in its tracks immediately as soon as its filed until it can be pulled back out.

My foreclosure option #11- Delay foreclosure by litigation- Also there are delay strategies that involve litigation. You can file an answer pro se. Usually it is in your best interest to file an answer when you are facing judicial foreclosure. You can also file a continuance after you file your answer which simply means you would file a paper saying “I can’t meet at this hearing could you reschedule for further on” and that type of thinking will give you extra time in a judicial foreclosure. I spend a whole lesson on tips for filing an answer and continuance as well as offering a sample answer and continuance in pdf format in a future lesson. You can sign up for that by taking a test drive of my free stop foreclosure videos.

Also there are other options for litigation where if you get an attorney where you definately need an atorney and I always recommend you get an attorney when you are in foreclosure. A good attorney who’s experienced can find places where the foreclosure attorney maybe didn’t file his or her paperwork properly or good attorney can defend you based based on the compliance of the lender in the way they wrote the loan and serviced it and attempted to collect the debt. In so challenging the case your case can be delayed or it could easily get thrown out of court. A good attorney can probably delay a foreclosure case indefinitely through counter suits that focus on a variety of different levels. So I always recommend an attorney if you’re trying to delay or move or whatever you do. Make sure sure the attorney you hire has experience doing what you’re looking to have them do.

Stay tuned to these video lessons. I will be focusing on 15 separate strategies for delaying foreclosure.

Please leave your questions and comments below… thanks!

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Your options for avoiding foreclosure and staying in your home

My foreclosure option #1- Catch everything current- Let’s start with your options for staying. Some of these options are obvious like you can cure the default and catch everything current. That’s an option if you have money. Obviously I’m assuming that you wouldn’t have gotten in the situation if you had money to pay your loan current.

My foreclosure option #2- Litigation to erase your loan balance- Another option that you may have is litigation. Although we live in a litigious society for most of us or atleast for my self I know that I don’t enjoy going to court and it’s never fun. However, there are attorneys that have made their business to challenge lenders on predatory lending practices. Even if there was no predatory lending often times banks will violate any one of the many sections of the volumes of banking code. Some attorneys have been known to find violations of these banking codes and actually bring those to light in the court room and try to erase your loan. If you’re lucky you’ll stay in your house forever for free. At the very least it can become a delay tactic to give you more time to live in your house. (note- I am currently looking for attorneys that have experience actually erasing mortgage debt. If you know of a good one or you are one please contact me by filling out the feedback form on my FORECLOSURE PREVENTION ATTORNEYS page.

My foreclosure option #3- File Chapter 13 Bankruptcy- Another option if you want to stay in your house indefinitely to be able to do that is to file a chapter 13 bankruptcy. If you want to stay in your house chapter 13 bankruptcy is an option for some people. For most people it doesn’t work and it ends up simply being a delay tactic which is might not be a bad thing. Chapter 13 bankruptcy is a federal court action that trumps all other lower court actions, foreclosure actions and a trustee appointed by the federal court will actually require force all your creditors accept payment arrangements.

Chapter 13 rarely works because because usually the payment plan created is extremely aggressive. I’ve been told the trustees in charge managing these bankruptcy’s have a financial incentive to create very aggressive payment plans that can make nearly impossible to succeed in completing them.. If you make your agreed payments on time every single time according to the plan you lender has to accept those payments. However if you’re a day late even once any lender can pop out of the chapter 13 and pursue you, say for foreclosure or judgment or something like that. You have to be aware of that and be able to possibly increase your income, increase your likely hood of being successful in a chapter 13 plan.

My foreclosure option #4- FHA partial claim- Another option you may have is something called partial claim. Partial claims are available for people who have FHA loans. A lender may be able to help you get out of foreclosure by actually making a claim on the FHA insurance. HUD insures or backs the loan and so that claim ends up being extra money that you owe on top of the mortgage. It will bring you current and then that amount of money that you borrow basically ends up being put on the back of the loan when it gets paid off. This is one of the added benefits you recieve if you happen to have an FHA loan.

My foreclosure option #5- Loan modification- Another option is a loan modification program. A loan modification is basically a complete change in the terms of your loan. Your lender actually remakes the loan. The lender has a lot of leeway to modify a loan. When they choose to allow you to modify a loan, they can do things like: extend the terms, lower the payment and lower interest rates. Or they may increase rate but reamortize the loan and to make the payments more affordable. They have a lot of different ways you can modify a loan. Generally a lender is going to try and not do a loan modification if possible and possibly do a forbearance plan instead, which requires you to put more money up front. We’ll talk about the forbearance plan, however loan modification is one of the most beneficial things you can do if you can get a lender to do it. More and more lenders in their desperate state are going straight to loan modifications. They are not playing the games they use to several years back where they try to force you into a much more difficult plan that just sends you further into foreclosure. In fact lenders are now so desparate that I even saw a first mortgage lender offer to pay off a second mortgage and on top of that reduce the balance by 10 percent just to avoid taking their borrower to court.

My foreclosure option #6- Forebearance plan- The forbearance plan is a sibling of the loan modification plan. A lot of people don’t know the difference however it is very significant. If you are already in foreclosure and you do a forebearance plan your lender will typically just pause the foreclosure. This means the foreclosure is not canceled. They don’t redo the loan at all they simply ask you to start making payments plus a little bit or a lot of bits extra to repay the back payments. Typically they ask you to put pretty large deposit up front to help with the attorneys legal fees and other bull shit fees. Normally for the average person who’s having a hard time handling a loan anyways and they got behind, a forbearance plan simply is not a realistic option unless the lender is very generous in the terms they offer.

My foreclosure option #7- Foreclosure Bail Out Refinance- In addition to the other methods for staying in your home that I have already talked about there’s something called the foreclosure bail out refinance. Federal law has created a lot of opportunities with the crises in mortgage and loans they’ve increased incentives for banks to work with you. One of the things they’ve done is if you were in a subprime loan that adjusted up and you went behind after that adjustment up you may qualify, even though your credit is totally shot and your score is zero. Your income still has to be qualify but not your credit. And you can get a FHA loan at a good rate that’s fixed for 30 years. If your property appraises for what your new loan amount is going to be when you refinance that’s something that very well could be an option for you and you should look into.

For most people refinancing is not an option for foreclosure if you’ve got 90 days late your credit is so shot that no lender will touch your except if you owe very small percentage of what your house is worth or if you fit into this foreclosure bailout refinance plan.

My foreclosure option #7- Foreclosure Mediation- Another potential option for you works along side some of the other options is something called court mediation. This is a relatively new phenomenon. It didn’t use to happen very often but with all the things that are happening the courts are stepping up to try to do their part so that they don’t have to be the condiute for so many people losing their homes to foreclosure. For instance, Ohio created a plan which is being adopted by most of the judicial foreclosure states. The county courts are encouraged to offer mediation to all foreclosure cases. If the defendant (you) accepts the offer from the mediation the court can actually force a lender plaintiff to fly a representative from across the nation, to come meet with you face-to-face. In mediation no party is required to actually do anything other than meet however anything agreed upon in mediation is legally binding and everything is recorded by the proffessional court ordered mediator. If a lender has to spend the money to send someone to meet you face to face they suddenly become much more motivated to make that money count and to make something happen. This could be an oppurtinity work with a person from that actually lives in our country and speaks english to create a loan modification or forebearance plan that actually can work for you.

Mediation can also be worked into some of the other strategies other than staying in the house. You can get a lot of different results from mediation that are beneficial to both you and the bank. It is one of the most effective ways to work with your lender on a level playing field if you have the oppurtunity.

My foreclosure option #8- Lease back- Another way you could possibly stay in your house is called a lease back. Lease backs aren’t always legal so you want to check with an attorney that understands your local and state law as well as the federal regulations.. If you’re doing a short sale and you combine that with the lease back then you’re going to want to make sure that the details of the lender acceptance letter for the short sale doesn’t specifically say that you can’t do a lease back or that you can’t sell it to an purchaser that you’ve made extra arrangements with.

A lease back is where you would actually short sale or just sell it like normal to say a friend or “friendly person” or investor. That person would then lease it back to you, usually with a purchase price agreed to at a certain point in the future. This gives you time to repair your credit and purchase your home back. I have to warn you credit repair doesn’t always work. However if you sell the house and pay off the loan and avoid actuall foreclosure, you should be able to purchase a house within two years. I’ll talk more about lease backs in the future but all the strategies in the full “Short Sale of Your Hme and Get Paid” course will work even if you’re selling it to a friend on a a lease back.

I invite your comments and questions regarding this transcript or the video below. If I don’t answer you directly on the comments section I am going to attempt to answer your questions by video on this blog. Thank you!

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