Lender wants to "secure my property"..

[ohiodd]

Got discharged today at our Ch 7 341.. On the drive home, I got a call from Chase Mortgage stating that they had received notice of discharge and wanted to know if we still lived at our house.(wow...news travels quick) We surrendered the home in our bankruptcy, and moved into a rental about 2 months ago before winter came. But we check it daily, keep the utilities on, and have been moving stuff out gradually. Still lots of "stuff" at the old house needing to go to storage etc. Will they just padlock the doors without any further notice, or will they give me a short window of time to get the stuff out. If they do simply padlock the doors, can I get access to the house to get the stuff? I just don't want to go over tomorrow and be unable to get in. I would think they would rather have me get the stuff out than have to haul it away or dispose of it themselves.

[DeadManCrawling]

The home is yours until the deed is recorded showing the lender as the owner.

Simple as that.

They MAY change the locks, padlock the place, or do who knows what. In that event, you are within your rights to cut the locks, break in, bust a window. It is still YOUR home.

Now, that being said, there are remedies they are entitled to to protect their interest. Securing the property is one. What this means, in practical terms, is that you should not do more than the minimum necessary to regain access.

Do not shatter the massive 2-story $5,000.00 plate glass window overlooking the 18th green in order to enter when you could do so through the small 6 pane glass door on the side of the garage.

I would also tape a piece of cardboard over that side-door, just to show you were not being spiteful and trying to harm the place.

The lenders are amusing in this sense. We have the exact situation, moved out a couple weeks ago, surrendered it in BK. But the lender will probably want to "secure" our place too. Then, property secured, they could just let it sit for a couple years. So, they protect their future interest, but let us pay the current HOA bills.

Maddening.

Best,

-dmc

[1967]

I get really confused by this. How is it someone can stay in the house for so long then? How long does it take to record the deed.

I guess I always thought they had to follow some sort of eviction laws???

I'm new to this so I'm just trying to understand it.

Mike

[DeadManCrawling]

Hi 1967,

The lender, in many but not all states, has to go through foreclosure proceedings on a judicial level. This means, usually, months of hearings and so on.

If the people still live in the house, the lender really cannot, or is not supposed to, try the above tactic of securing the home.

Once the home is abandoned, the lender can try to exercise these other remedies. Some do, some don't which is probably where the confusion begins.

But, either way, the home remains the property of the borrower until the lender has the deed changed. Even then, the lender usually has to follow state law regarding evictions. And may offer money to the people in the home to leave, just to make things easier and assure the property is not looted.

It can and does get complicated, but it IS understandable. If you are concerned about this, keep reading. It took almost three years for me to grasp some of the simpler points. And it all depends on each individual case, too.

best,

-dmc

[PdxDavid]

I get really confused by this. How is it someone can stay in the house for so long then? How long does it take to record the deed.

I guess I always thought they had to follow some sort of eviction laws???

I'm new to this so I'm just trying to understand it.

Mike

A lot of it depends on the laws of the state that you live in. For instance in my state, Oregon, they have to give you 120 notice that they will be selling the house as part of foreclosure. We didn't do it, but if we wanted to take advantage of the situation we could have stopped paying. Waited until they give the 120 day notice. Waited until almost the end of that 120 days to file the BK. That would have given us a minimum of 1 year without a house payment.

It looks like you are from Wisconsin. It says a typical timeline for foreclosure is 90 days there. Here is a link....

http://www.foreclosurelaw.org/Wisconsin_Foreclosure_Law.htm

[NoMoreCards]

I am confused how you got the discharge at the 341 meeting. I have never heard of that because there are typical guidelines with respect to time frames. You only filed in Mid Nov and you are already discharged!!
It is equally amazing how the lender got your discharge papers before you even got home! Lol! News does travel fast!

I am jealous! It took much longer here in Michigan, and I thought things went fairly quick here.

Congrats on the discharge and good luck with your new start!!!

[aljohnson007]

Just no way you can be discharged short of 60 days after your 341. I would check into this before taking any actions.

[DeadManCrawling]

AJ is right. There is a misunderstanding or mistake about the discharge.

By law, a discharge cannot happen until a set number of days AFTER 341-This is why you see people here welcomed into the 60 day club.

Sometimes people confuse terms like dismissed and discharged. It is also possible that Chase was using discharge in one of its' many OTHER forms: Your debts are presumed to be DISCHARGED by most people, following the 341. This is technically not true, but most folks accept that as fact. However, your discharge of DEBT does not really happen until your CASE is discharged, some 60 days after the 341 meeting.

Perhaps one of these widely used versions of the word "discharge" are what is the root of the confusion.

[1967]

Thank you for the great explanation!

Mike