M. Nack’s Blog

For the past six months, my assistant and I have been learning about foreclosures and delving into helping people that are threatened with losing their homes. She and I attended an event this morning put on by the Illinois Housing Dept Authority (IHDA) to educate people who are in trouble. Allowing your home to be taken back by the bank in an auction is ABSOLUTELY the WORST thing you can do!! The bank is not really the enemy and, surprisingly, the bank’s interests are not that different from yours: you don’t want them to take your home, and they are not interested in owning your home. They want the money you owe them. That’s the business they are in. They are in the home LENDING business, not the home OWNING business So, if you call them to try and work things out, they will almost always work with you.

Let’s say you decide to just abandon the house - thinking that the bank will just take your property and everything will then just go away. After all, they are getting the house. What more can they want from you? So, you go off to Brazil or someplace nice and warm and start all over again. WRONG! WRONG! WRONG! Doing that just makes things worse. If you end up losing your home at auction, and it is sold for less than what you owe (which is what typically happens - particularly if you’ve abandoned the property), you are still on the hook for what the bank is owed. So now, you’ve not only lost your home but now your credit rating is in the toilet (and you won’t be able to buy another home for 7 years or even rent a decent apartment!) and you STILL owe the bank its money! They can (and will!) go after you for the dough and file a judgment against you - which only screws up your credit rating that much more.

By all means, DO NOT! DO NOT! DO NOT! bury your head in the sand thinking it will all just go away. Call the number that is on your payment book and tell them you’re having problems. There are lots of legitimate counseling agencies that will assist you in the process of working out something with your lender.

Finally - BEWARE OF SCAMS! There are plenty of predators out there looking to take advantage of people that have fallen on hard times. Tomorrow, I will go into “Mortgage Rescue Fraud” - the red flags and signs to look for.

“All Things With Exuberance!”
mary!