California Deed in Lieu of Foreclosure Attorneys
There may come a time when you will suddenly realize that it has become difficult if not impossible to make the required payments for the home mortgage. A deed in lieu of fotreclosure may be your ticket to exit safely and a good California real estate attorneys is just wht you need.
If this is your situation, then you might be facing the possibility of a foreclosure. You lose your home and some of your self-respect, and you discover later that it is much more difficult for you to take out a loan.
Don’t despair because the Law Offices of Fransen & Molinaro, LLP may be just what you need to lend you a helping hand because one of their primary areas of expertise is mortgage law and predatory lending.
But first, why don’t you have some quiet time with yourself and ask yourself a couple of questions?
The threat of a foreclosure may be so frightening that the fear could prevent you from making a wise decision or it could spur you into making a move that you will later regret. Many people just want to walk away and give the keys back to the bank. That is perfectly fine, but make sure you are educated about the “legal” risks that you may face because of that decision.
Here’s a secret that you might find interesting: your lender is just as reluctant as you to go ahead with the foreclosure.
Why would he want to pay for legal expenses that could average $10,000 per month? Why would he want to lose the monthly income during the time interval when it is foreclosed and when it is sold?
So, calm yourself a bit and look at your situation from the point of view of another person who is not worried about foreclosure. Ask yourself (or this imaginary person) if the current incapacity to pay is permanent or temporary. If your financial situation is temporary, then why don’t you workout a solution with the lender?
If it is permanent, then you might have to give up your home but you must try to protect yourself from being liable beyond what the lender could get when he sells the property.
If Your Situation Is Temporary, You Might Get to Keep Your Home
A possible alternative here is loan modification, where the current agreement with the lender is renegotiated for an adjustment in the interest rate, especially for adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs) and the teaser rate is no longer in force.
The teaser rate is lower than prevalent rates so that the lender would, of course, want to increase the rate. However, in this alternative, you are depending on the principle that the lender might find it more appealing to permit you to continue to pay the teaser price for a longer length of time instead of getting zero monthly payments with you out of the house.
If You Have to Leave Your Home, Do So without Fear
If you have been honest with yourself and found that the situation is permanent, there is no choice but to hand over the keys to your home. But it is not as simple as that. In some states, your liability as debtor will not be totally erased if the house sells for less than the unpaid amount. The lender might force you to make up for the difference! So, how do you protect yourself from this possibility?
An option that you might consider is the short sale, where it is possible for the lender to free you from being responsible for any deficiency in the amount collected from the sale.
But wait!
A potential problem here is that there must be a willing buyer and the lender must agree to the proposed price. The challenge here is looking for the buyer who would be able to offer an amount that is not too low that the lender would not be interested.
Another option is the deed in lieu of foreclosure, which simply means that you just hand over the keys of your home to the lender and in return he forgives and forgets any difference in the amount you had not paid and the money he would get from selling it. Just make sure that the agreement is in writing and, of course, having a lawyer to guide you in the process would be better.
It is important to remember with the short sale and the deed in lieu of foreclosure that they are quite complex in their requirements. One critical requirement here is that you must be able to prove to the lender that you are no longer capable of keeping up with the payments but that you were indeed capable during that time that you took out the loan.
