There’s A Monster in the Closet!

By: Ceara L. Riggs, Bankruptcy Attorney in St. Petersburg, Florida at The Reissman Law Group, P.A.
Search for St. Petersburg/Tampa Bankruptcy Lawyers and what comes up? Pages about modifying your home or walking away from your home. Those aren’t the only two options, but they’re the most common options.
So how about modifying? It’s easy – as easy as filling out an application to be President of the United States. Well, although there’s no application to be President of the United States, there is an application for a modification. But unlike any other application or paperwork you’ve completed, after you complete the paperwork demanded by the bank (all 40-80 pages of it), you send it to the bank for them to review. Then you send it in again. And send it in again. And send it in again. And maybe send it in one more time. Then you wait until they tell you you need more documents. Rinse. Repeat. Oh yeah, and there’s no guarantee that you’ll get a modification at the end, by which time you’re even further behind on your mortgage.
Or, you can hire The Reissman Law Group, P.A. Our law firm can make your life easier by sparing you from the repeated sending and numerous requests. But, more importantly, in a typical scenario, the money spent on our attorneys may even reduce the amount of money that you pay out to the bank over the duration of the new mortgage. In other words, it’s worth it to hire someone that scares the bank – someone with an “E-S-Q” at the end of their name. (See end of author’s name)
Speaking of scaring the bank, the other option that seems to be advocated on the internet is to simply walk away – sell your house through a short sale process, enter into a Deed in Lieu agreement, or literally, walk away and let the bank foreclose. No matter what you choose, your next internet search better be for “Deficiency Judgment” and what you find will be scarier than Freddie or Chucky knocking on your door. What you’ll find is that your bank can lie in wait for 7 years and then, after they sold the house, probably entered into a new mortgage with a new borrower, and seemingly moved on with their lives by collecting money from the new borrower, they can come after you for this elusive, undisclosed “Deficiency Judgment.” Definition - unsecured money judgment against a borrower whose foreclosure sale did not produce sufficient funds to pay the underlying loan in full (thank you, Wikipedia!) So when you walk away from your house, selling it for less than the amount remaining on your loan, and usually it’s sold for a lot less, the bank can still collect that money from you, 7 years down the road, as a lump sum.
But, guess what? In this movie, you can finally get rid of the “Chucky” and make sure he doesn’t haunt you for 7 years. You can get rid of that deficiency judgment and not have it hanging over your head for 7 years. That means when you walk away from the house, in any form, you really can walk away from the house and start again. Now doesn’t that sound like a better idea?
To secure a modification or to start over without lingering debt haunting you, contact the attorneys at The Reissman Law Group, P.A.