Am I able to surrender my home to the lender after going bankrupt?

Question

After being conned by a so-called friend in the mortgage business, I had to go bankrupt, in turn losing, two rental homes. Now the home I live in had a 2/28 arm mortgage and it just so happens that the 2 yrs was up right at the time of my bankrupcty. No one told me that after having two forclosures no my record, I wouldnt not be able to refinance. Now my payment is up over 1500 a month when it originally started at around 900. What I need to know is if it is possible to work with the lender to just give the house up, they have already made a looot of money off of me. I know my credit is already trashed so that is no concern to me anymore. I am moving out of state and need to get rid of all this headache. Its been almost 3 and a half yrs that all this has been haunting me. Thanks. Dave

Answer 1

Call your lender. You may be able to make arrangements to do a "Deed in Lieu of Foreclosure". It's not done often, but given your circumstances, it may work for you. Also, talk to a real estate agent. There is a chance that you can sell this property for at least the amount that you owe on it, if not more. I'd actually suggest this over the other since you have a chance of actually getting back some of your investment. I really hope this works out for you. Good luck!

Answer 2

Call your lender, a client of mine just did a deed in lieu of forclosure, but she had to have the house on the market first, and try to sell it.

Her mortgage company was great in terms of outlining what she had to do in order to "get rid of the house". Her's was a HUD insured loan, and they were following the HUD guidelines, which were very straightforward.

Every lender is going to be different, and you need to get ahold of someone in the loss mitigation department. You will probably have to be behind in payments before they will talk to you about your options though....if you arent behind, call first and see if they will talk to you or not, don't hurt your credit any more than you already have unless you have to to resolve the situation.

If you do list your home, find a realtor that specializes in short sales, because the bank will probably negotiate that, however make sure that the bank will not file a deficiency lein for the balance that the sale was short.

Good luck!

Answer 3

Once upon a time you could do a 'return of deed in lieu of foreclosure' but I don't know if it is still available.
Call the lender and ask, (without the long story, it will only confuse the person)
If you are capable of buying property, you may want to start spending some time reading the loan documents and paying attention to the terms. You should know by this time that refinance uses your credit record & forclosurers are a negative.
But try the 'return of deed in lieu of foreclosure' first.

Answer 4

Try to sell it for at least what you owe.