Will filing bankruptcy (7 or 13) stop foreclosure? Do they take the house?

Either way, filing bankruptcy and including your mortgage loan in the petition will temporarily stop any foreclosure proceedings. The automatic stay will be in effect, which will prohibit any creditors from pursing collection activities for as long as the stay is in place. This means that the bank can not move ahead with its lawsuit against you, nor have the house sold at a county sheriff sale.

But where the house goes from there depends on whether you file Chapter 7 or Chapter 13 bankruptcy. There are big differences between the two, and state exemptions and rules may determine which one you best qualify for and what property you get to keep. The best idea is probably to consult with a personal bankruptcy lawyer before moving ahead with either filing, although it is quite possible to file bankruptcy on your own.

A Chapter 7 will allow you to discharge your unsecured debts and secured debts, as long as the creditors have access to the collateral for which the loan was guaranteed. That means that you can discharge your mortgage under this type of filing, but the bank will get to keep the house. You will also not have to worry about a deficiency judgment, as the house will be considered the best the bank can expect and any remaining balance on the mortgage will be discharged.

With a Chapter 13, you will enter into a payment plan in order to get caught up on the debts that you have fallen behind. Currently, bankruptcy judges do not have the authority to lower mortgage balances, so you would have to pay back the total amount you are behind as well as keep up on your regular monthly mortgage payment. For many homeowners, this can be expensive; although, if you make it through the 3-5 year plan, you will get to keep your home. If you fall behind, the bank will most likely have the automatic stay lifted and put the house back into foreclosure.

Hope that helps.
ForeclosureFish

IndyMac and Citifinancial did their investigation and found out that this was fraud and they stop the foreclosure proceeding and stop reporting negative notes on my credit report. The problem is I just received a letter from IndyMac’s lawyers asking me to sign a DEED in lieu of foreclosure. I do not know what this means I can not afford a lawyer because I have a minimum wage job and I am only 19. I think that I should not sign this because I did not sign to get the place in the first place so these place do not belong to me. I am scared what should I do the legal words are like spanish to me I try to google it, but if I sign this, this is saying that I acknowledge owning these condos. HELP PLEASE. Should I sue INDY MAC i can not even get a car loan for $4000.00. My credit score was 735 now I do not know what it is. I have to go to FL next week to sign a statement in the criminal case pending against this man.

You need to talk to a lawyer. Don’t assume you can’t afford one until you talk to one.

First of all, DO NOT SIGN ANYTHING UNTIL YOU TALK TO A LAWYER.

Here’s what I see. The property was purchased in your name, and the deed was to you. It’s yours. You DO own them.

The mortgage on it, however, was never signed by you. It isn’t valid at all, they can’t actually foreclose in the normal way. They have to first establish that as a "purchase money mortgage" that it is valid and enforceable despite never being signed by the Owner of the property.

The Fault for this situation is not yours. It’s all on the Lender side of the transaction, and probably with some middlemen who didn’t do their jobs. While you are not entitled to a windfall of the property from this, you shouldn’t be out anything, either, since you never participated.

I’d suggest you see a lawyer and see if they’ll agree to represent you to get this cleared up, and have them require the banks to pay their fees. They can do that in your Answer to the Complaint. I think there’s a very good chance that would be in the final Order.

my mother passed on dec.30 2008. her house is currently under foreclosure. i recently went in front of a judge to ask for a second extention. the sherriff sale is for jan. 29. im in the process of becoming excecutor of estate due to my fathers’ health condition. i still need a surety bond before the surrogates office can finalize the whole thing. my question is, will the surety bond stop the foreclosure? i want to reinstate the mortgage. my credit is not in good standing, i have unpaid credit cards and a repo. i have to save my house for my fathers well being. thanks in advance for your help!

It may give you a short reprieve, but if you cannot show a likelihood that you will be able to repay the mortgage, either by refinancing, or getting the money some other way, there is no guarantee (if you get a nice judge he may rule in your favour just to be nice - in many areas there is an implicit moratorium (not legally imposed) on enforcing foreclosures and I hope this situation applies to you if nothing else helps.
Unfortunately, there is more bad news.
You cannot re-instate the mortgage if your mother’s name was on it. check the title to the house — if she held it as a joint tenant with your father, then he now owns here share (if she held it alone or as a tenant in common it is in the estate)
With the change in ownership the bank will require you to refinance — pay off the mortgage with money from a new mortgage, and if your father now holds full title, the new mortgage will have to be in his name (you can help him pay it as a co-signor (this is unlikely to help if you have bad credit yourself), but you can’t be on the mortgage if you are not an owner). Refinancing will therefore require that his credit is good enough to get a loan in the required amount.
He can transfer the house to someone who has good enough credit, but this will likely involve some very steep transaction costs. The bank should allow this so long as it gets its money (the person receiving the transfer can pay or get a new mortgage to pay off the old mortgage)
Best of luck.

I am 6 payments behind,for various reasons. Have called the mortgage company several times during these past 6 months explaining my situation. Had to leave town on a family emergency,when I got back the mortgage co. had send me a "letter of intent to foreclose,which expired while I was out of town. Called them as soon as I got back. It has already gone into foreclosure. This is what they told me……I "may" qualify for a loan modification,I will find out Monday when they run the income numbers.If not,they want 6 months and legal fees to stop the foreclosure and re-instate the loan. If I do the modification,I still have to come up with 3 months and sign the modification papers. I am "terrified" about this. Does anyone know what kind of lawyer fees are involved? Is it for inspection,appraisal fees,etc? This first lady I spoke to basically said I have no option other that to pay the 6 months and legal fees. Then I called back again to give them some extra income that I hadn’t worked into my monthly expenses and she’s the one who said I could possibly do it with the 3 months of payments and then they would modify the loan. The first lady also said I could contact HUD…what would they do for me? Bottom line is……..am I still ok as far as saving my home,since I have been given two options to come up with? Obviously,doing the 3 months of payments would be a lot easier. I asked if any other paperwork had been mailed to me regarding any of this and she said she doesn’t see anything going out. What should I do? And will the loan modifications lower my payments or will they be higher? Any help would be appreciated…I’m panicking!

Don’t know enough here to know what you should do. You find yourself here "for various reasons" which we don’t know what they are. Are they one time issues or recurring ones which might lead you to the realization that you cannot afford this home. If you ultimately cannot afford this home, the sooner you get out the better. Good luck.

We are facing foreclosure on tuesday of our home. The people have not payed the property taxes in a while and we were just wondering if there is a way to kinda extend the due date or…away to stop the foreclosure an info on this, …please any help is greatly appreciated

Im taking it that you are the rental tenants of the propertyand the owners are the ones that have neglected their taxes.
If this is true, perhaps you can try talking to the owners.

See if they will agree to you guys taking over the payments on the house, as in an assuming of their loan. You can tell the owners that youll pay the payments so that you can live in the home.
Try to have them transfer ownership of the property to you, or perhaps a lease to purchase agreement made, where you make house payments and agree to catch up on the taxes and they will in turn give you the deed eventually.
If that happens you can always contact the tax assessment office and arrange a payment schedule with them.

I doubt your rent is the exact amount of the loan payment so what you might be able to do in taking over the loan is apply the excess of your new rent payment(after loan payment is deducted) to the taxes.
I wouldnt understand why the owner wouldnt go for somethign like this, since the house will go to foreclosure anyways.

You could probably set up a small kick back to them as in 100 per month, or whatever you feel you can afford, after all is paid, just so that the owner gets something here.

If owner says no, try contacting the bank they make payments too, explain youre the tenants you will continue to make rental payments and would like to discuss possible ownership transfer, and see if they will work with you on that.
This way you will basically cut out the present owners out of the equation and you will make payments to the bank, but youll have to catch up the back taxes which — will probably have you breaking even — since you wont be paying rent–but paying the amount of the loan payments due directly to the loan holder, and you should have money left over for taxes.

I doubt they will just toss you out once the foreclosure process has taken place. If anything the next owner would want a tenant in their paying rent.

Have you considered trying to get a loan to purchase the property in foreclosure.
You should get a good price for it.

Best way to get your foot into the real estate market.

good luck its the best I could do.

i am going to see a lawyer to try to stop my foreclosure tomorrow . my end date is july 3,2007. if i have loans that i am not the primary account holder do i need to take those to show the lawyer as well or do they not count to file. if by any chance i get a petition from the lawyer to the court by the end of day tomorrow will it stop the sale of my property the next day. people in my city are waiting for my house to forfeit. that sucks because i put alot of money to it. i am trying to sell the property to make a profit and bankruptcy is my last resort to pocket something. if i read correctly texas law states the courts can only take profit money only if i exceed over 15,000.00 in profit to satifsy my lenders . is this true… please help tomorrow will be a long day of ass kissing

Hi. Actually, Texas has the homestead exemptions, so provided that you purchase another home with the profit you received, you are entitled to the money.

Everything you have been hearing about the "deal" he worked out with the major mortage companies is BS.
You have to have less than 3% equity in your home and you must not have more than one 30 day late in the last 12 months or you dont qualify. All this is is a bunch of PR for Bush and the mortgage companies involved. You are going to have a bunch of people run to these mortgage companies because of the free advertising they are getting by having this story all over the news. But, the only people that will be "helped" are those who could have refinanced anway.
spifman…can you read? My "point" is exactly what I said in the first sentence. Try reading slower it might help you comprehend more

So what’s your point?

The people that should lose their homes are going to and the lenders are going to get stuck with the losses, just the way it should be for making the stupid loans in the first place.

I know millions are going through this crisis. Is there an advocacy group or something that I can contact to stop the foreclosure or at least slow the process? He already received his notice to vacate and he has till the beginning of March to leave.
It hurts that this man is 70, I grew up in his house and he has had this house close to 30 years.
He mentioned to me that something illegal in his bank got the best of him, I personally don’t know.
Where should I start? He is in California.
He refinanced a few years ago which made his payments sky rocket. The value of his house declined dramatically and he couldn’t pay 2k on a house that went from 300,000 to 75,000
He received a notice to vacate the beginning of this month. He has til the beginning of March to get out.
You need to find out more of what happened. A house he has owned for 30 years should be paid for. Did he take out a loan recently? What did he do with the money?

Ask the city, county or senior citizen center for guidance.

My daughter is in a severe bind and I cannot help her financially. Can someone give me a phone number or email that can help me help her.

There is no simple answer as every situation is different. I can offer the following tips:

1. Contact the lender and try to work something out. There are several types of assistance that the lender can offer. They include forebearance (the temporary suspension or reduction of payments); modification (essentially writing a new loan contract); and reinstatement (where the past due amounts are paid immediately and the loan is reinstated). If the loan is an FHA, she should also contact HUD for assistance.

2. Contact a HUD approved housing counselor. They can help her to get out of default.http://www.hud.gov/offices/hsg/sfh/hcc/hcs.cfm

3. If none of the above work, try to sell the house before it is foreclosed.

4. File a chapter 13 bankruptcy which will allow her to pay the current payments plus cure the deficiency.

5. Re-finance.

6. Give the mortgage company a deed-in-lieu of foreclosure.

Those are the only options that I know of to effectively deal with foreclosure. Hope one of them works for her.

It is normal because nobody wants to lose his house or any other important material possession he might have. Thankfully there are ways now to avoid foreclosure and other degrading situations.

In many cases banks are quite eager to work out an effective solution with people who are completely off financially, simply because they are too. Loan modification is one of the ways that is suggested by experts and economists, as an effective way to deal with balances and clients who are behind their payments. It is known that foreclosures are not beneficiary for the banks; on the contrary, they try hard to find a solution to ease their clients so as that they can pay off their debts. It is much more beneficiary to lose a little money by modifying the terms of your loan rather than run a foreclosure and black list you. They will lose money that comes with the interests and they will lose a constant client. In any case the idea of foreclosing is something that banks today really want to avoid.

Mortgage loan modification is the change of the initial loan agreement and it doesn’t refer to refinancing. It’s all about the change of the initial terms of the mortgage that are simply not working for you any more, either because your financial status has changed or because the increased interest rates made the payment of monthly installments too hard for you.

You can call the mortgage lender and try to work out a solution yourself, or you can simply consult with an expert who can give you a useful insight on what is available today and what can help you deal effectively with the payment problems you have. Mortgage loan modification can be achieved easily when a professional does the job for you, simply because he has the necessary experience to deal with these problems effectively. Experts have the inside knowledge of the lending market and industry, thus, they are in a position to negotiate with lending institutions in a more effective way and achieve new terms that can make you afford your loan again.

No matter how hard is the situation, it is important to remember that you do have the option to modify your mortgage, even if you are behind. You can at try to act on the problem, rather than do nothing, because this will guide you directly to a foreclosure. Research your options and find out how you can save your home.

Richard Palms
http://www.articlesbase.com/personal-finance-articles/stop-foreclosure-with-a-mortgage-loan-modification-755596.html