Video Summary

What are the consequences of a home foreclosure? Well, the biggest impact it has is you lose your house. But, if you have found another location to live, well then we get past not having a place to live once they foreclose on your home.

It definitely impacts your credit, and every late payment makes your credit score go down. So, your credit will be impacted by the number of missed payments that you’ve had. The longer the foreclosure goes on, the more it impacts your credit score.

Also, once the foreclosure is concluded, the lender has one year from the date of the foreclosure sale date to bring an action to try and collect what they call a deficiency judgment. So, you would have to wait out another year to see whether or not the lender is going to come after you.

If the lender has forgiven, or agreed not to seek a deficiency judgment, or waived that, they may send you a 1099 and you may be liable for, have to pay taxes, on the property. However, if you owned the house for two out of the past five years, then you won’t have to recognize that gain.

Also, if you want to obtain a mortgage, you are going to have to wait two to four years after the foreclosure before you are going to be eligible to obtain a mortgage from a federally insured lending institution. That is sort of a laundry list of the impacts that mortgage foreclosure has on you if your home has foreclosed.

If you have any other questions or need someone to defend you in conjunction with a mortgage foreclosure action, give me a call at 7276-847-2288. Thank you.

Video Summary

How long can you remain in your home after the property has been foreclosed and has gone to auction?  Well after it is auctioned off, the clerk will issue a certificate of sale and approximately 10 to 14 days after the property has been sold they should be issuing a certificate of title.  If you are the owner of the property, they then can apply to the court for a writ of possession.  In years past, the courts depending on which particular court it is or judge, they have issued an order direct from the clerk to issue a writ of possession, so I would have in the past told you have about 10 days to 14 days before you would need to move out because once a writ of possession is issued you only have 24 hours.

However, that depends a lot on the lender and if they wish to take possession right away.  In the past, we have seen lenders contact the owner and have a realtor contact them about when they are going to move out and work with people as far as vacating and leaving the property in good condition.  There used to be even some assistance where they would give cash for keys in order for the person to leave and not damage the property.  Lately we have seen whenever we have foreclosed and request the court enter an order directing a writ of possession to be entered, the courts telling us in Pasco County, Florida that we have to set our motion for hearing, which is out probably six weeks.

Unfortunately, I cannot give you a hard and fast rule but it is safe to say that you have a minimum of 10 days after the foreclosure sale to be able to stay in your home or stay on the property.  If you are a tenant, the Federal Obama Law has sunsetted and there is no longer a federal law that allows you to remain in the property after the property has been sold at auction on a foreclosure sale.  However, I believe there is now a state statute and I am not sure the effective date that may give you some relief to be able to stay in there if you were a tenant of the property.  So unfortunately I have not given you a definitive answer but you do have a minimum of 10 days.

If you have any questions or need representation in conjunction with the matter, give me a call at 727-847-2288.

Video Summary

The property I rent is in foreclosure.  What are my options?

Well, until the foreclosure is completed, the person who is being foreclosed upon owns the property so you are obligated to continue to pay your landlord under the Landlord Tenant Act and under any kind of lease or rental arrangements.  So you would continue to pay them unless you receive a Pleading or Notice from the Court that says that you are to pay your rent into the Registry of the Court or to the bank’s attorney.

Also, there is an action that can be filed by a Homeowner’s Association or a Condominium Association that can require you to pay your rent to the Condominium or Homeowner’s Association if the owner is not paying the rent.

But because the property is in foreclosure does not excuse you from paying rent to your landlord.  If you do not pay the rent to the landlord, then he has a right to evict you.

So your options are pay your rent or you may be evicted from your property.

If you have any questions give me a call at 727-847-2288.

Video Summary

How does a lender determine a borrower’s eligibility for a loan modification?  The lender’s usually need a loan modification when they are in a mortgage foreclosure action and the standard is they look at 31 percent of your gross income and see whether or not they can modify your loan for principle, interest, taxes and insurance to see if it comes within the 31 percent.  I do not know what guidelines they have and how they do that but they usually do not forgive principle.  They try and spread your loan out over say a 40-year amortization to see if they can make that work, depending on the size of your loan.

They usually reduce your interest rate to in or around four percent and they may modify this for the entire 40-year period or they just may modify it for a short period of time.  But each lender looks at each loan on an individual basis but the 31 percent of gross income is what they look at.  If you are in foreclosure and want to have a mortgage modification you can call my office and we will undertake representation of you in the foreclosure.  My associate Jaleh Piran-Vesseh has done a lot of work as far as modifying mortgages.

That’s not, you’re not guaranteed that you’re going to get a mortgage modification and it’s up to the individual lenders.  There are some other programs that were available which if you haven’t missed a payment in 12 months and your loan was current, the lenders would give you, refinance your mortgage even if the value of the property was less than the amount that was owed.  I don’t know the name of that program but that was available.  I don’t know if it’s still available or not.  But that hopefully that gives you some insight about getting a mortgage modification.

If you have some questions about it, well give me a call at 727-847-2288.  Thank you.

Video Summary

Can I dispute a foreclosure action on my home?  The answer to that is yes you can.  In Florida we are a judicial foreclosure state, which means that the person who holds your mortgage, must file a lawsuit called a mortgage foreclosure action against you and you will be served with the papers. That is usually done by a process server.  The summons provides that you have 20 days in which to respond.  That is the best time to engage an attorney and to file a response. That is how you dispute the mortgage foreclosure action in the event that there is some allegation in the complaint that is not correct.

So if you want to dispute it and try and save your home, the courts have set up what they call mediation.  And you can take advantage of mediation once you receive the summons and ask the court to send you to a mediator which will be automatic.  If you want to participate in mediation to try and resolve the foreclosure action, you need to file certain paperwork such as your financial statements to send to the lender.  If the foreclosure action is just flat wrong and you have made all your payments and you are not in default well then the attorney would file an answer to the complaint.  I think that you would be well served by hiring a lawyer to handle this because you are governed by the rules of civil procedure and it would be an expense to you.  But that’s the best way to bring forward any defenses you have to a mortgage foreclosure action.

So the best time to defend a mortgage foreclosure action as soon as you receive the summons which has attached to it the mortgage foreclosure complaint.  We do any number of foreclosure defense cases and attempt to get mortgage modifications, participate in mediation as well as defend and try mortgage foreclosure cases to try and save your home for you.

If you have any questions, give me a call at 727-847-2288.