so something like this could be used to help thor save his house?
In theory yes... but it may be too late now His battle has been going on for a long time. I did point this out to him some time ago
but who can buy it, if no one knows who has the title? would suck to buy a house and then be told you had no legal right to own it because the title didn't belong to the seller
THAT is a problem. If you cannot establish clear title, I have no idea what can be done
My friend across the street fell off a ladder (he is(was) a sign installer) This put him in the hospital for 6 months and his legs are still not up to snuff.
Well that started a cascade of events...
First he had no income so house payments were not being made. Then his lady left him because there was no more money. On top of that his boss, already considering retiring, used this as an excuse to close the business and he moved to Arizona
Now just before the accident, my friend had taken out a loan against the equity to buy a new truck. At the time property values were high... but shortly after the economy crashed and house values dropped drastically...
Now he too made a deal with the banks trying to keep the house... but they sold it out from under him while saying they were still working it out. The first he knew it was sold was when the new owner came to look at it expecting it to be empty
He fought it and got some extra time to move out... but in the end he did have to leave or lose all his stuff. Fortunately the new owner did not want any trouble so it worked out okay.
Thing was that by this time he had not made ANY payments for 18 months.
Well I got him into the Teamster convention business. Took a bit of doing because hiring was slow at that time... (he basically replaced me as I was leaving due to my legs)
I talked with him for a long time on this. It is not easy to convince someone that they are better off leaving the house and starting over.
But in this case the NUMBERS won out
He basically owed 185 K on the house. He had taken out a loan of 45 K to pay for the truck. At the time of the take over the property was values at only 85 K
So to make up 18 months of payments and try to save an over inflated property when you are just getting back on your feet made no sense. Since he was now single anyway it would be better to 'cut and run'
So after several weeks of discussion, he realized that if he let the bank take it, THEY would lose the 100K value anyway and HE would be clear of all responsibility and debt... a true fresh start
So in the end he did walk away.
He found a new place that was being rented by an old couple. It was a large property with a huge truck garage. They told him he could rent to buy...
So end result... He walked away from all that debt, he walked away from a property he owed twice what it was worth AND he had a brand new truck paid for in cash (effectively the bank bought it for him
)
Since he now was starting that new Teamster job ($22.00 an hour to start) had a new place to stay that he could purchase over time, and had a paid for truck... he now had an instant new start
Sometimes walking away iand finding a new place is the best solution
Twice before in my life I have walked away from a property because the property devalued. Most people expect property to INCREASE in value but that doesn't always happen
The first one was in Winnepeg.... I then moved back to Toronto. The second one was in Oshawa ( just outside Toronto) The GM plant closed doors and that killed the town... We were hoping to sell and have the money to move to the US but we ended up having to walk because the property value dropped from 140 K to 50K over night...
We did move to the US but it took all our savings and we had to rent an apartment in a low rent district till we got a new start
This house we currently own.... we paid 142 K in 2000. We had moved to the US in 1993 It took that long to recover enough to get a down payment and clear bad debt.
When the boom hit the value went to 325 K I probably should have sold but you still need a place to live so nothing gained
Then the crash came. Our house, like my friend's, dropped in value to 85K as well (maybe a little more as we have a corner lot) but we still owed 135K on it at the time)
Now today finally the pendulum is swinging back... Got a real estate broker saying he has buyers that are looking and we could get 185 K again and we only owe 111K now. I am hoping this stays stable for a while. I don't want to have to walk a third time I am too old to start over