Almost 90 days late in Fla -- just want this over with?!

[cityish]

As of May 15 I will be 90 days late with Chase (primary) and Countrywide (home equity).

When I saw this coming, I immediately went out and found a nice apt. before my credit rating could take a hit. So I don't even live at the house anymore.

Here is my problem: I don't want to continue to maintain the property while waiting eight some months for a foreclosure to happen. But I can't find a buyer, and the lenders are dragging this out. I just want to get this house off of my hands NOW....

I lived in this house for 9 years and I can't just "walk away" and let the property go to pot and let the weeds go hip deep. That wouldn't be fair to my neighbors, some of whom are also my friends.

Last month the power bill was $140 and that was just to keep the yard flood lights on to ward off burglars; run the ceiling fans to keep mold and mildew from forming; and watering the yard occasionally. Of course $140/month is an improvement over the $450 power bills when I was living there!

But right now I can't afford it and it is embarrassing to keep running into the neighbors when I go back on weekends to maintain the place in hopes that a buyer will magically materialize. Everyone obviously knows what is going on at this point.

I dread going back on weekends to mow the lawn!

I asked my primary mortgager if a deed-in-lieu was possible but they said no due to the fact I have a home equity with Countrywide.

I can't find a buyer.

I do not want to keep going back and mowing the lawn all summer long and even into the fall. I don't have a buyer. Any suggestions? I just want this nightmare to end! Could I just mail the keys to the primary lender? If I could make a foreclosure auction happen tomorrow I would!

[FreshLikeADaisy]

Cityish, you're kind of stuck until a foreclosure sale occurs and the deed is transferred. I don't know anything about the weeds, that's up to you to either cut them or take the embarrassment, but I do know that you need to ensure that the property has some sort of homeowner's insurance on it between now and whenever the foreclosure sale occurs, so that you are not devastated by some unforeseen damage claim. To be honest, you would have been wise to stay in the house longer, but I understand why you didn't. I just don't see a way out of this for you now, beyond calling the primary lender and begging them to foreclose asap!!!

Anyway, good luck to you.

[cityish]

Hi Daisy,
Thank you for your reply.


Trust me, I would have loved nothing better than to stay in the house and live rent-free until the foreclosure took place. But I was afraid that after taking a hit on my credit rating, I wouldn't be able to find a decent landlord who would rent to me. So I bailed out before I got reported to the credit bureaus. I deliberately picked an apartment complex rather than a private property or house, because I wanted a place where I could hang out a few years until I'm able to repair my credit rating a bit.


Could you please clarify for me why it's important to maintain the home insurance? My home insurance policy is up for renewal on June 28. Frankly I do not have the money. I am barely, barely making it right now. I can hardly afford to make my rent & credit card payments (which I ran up NOT on clothes or trips, but rather on house maintenance at my property that I am now losing....)

If I'm walking away from the property, why should I worry about insuring it until the foreclosure happens?

Thanks for any input !

[cityish]

As far as damage claims go.... I don't see how someone could successfully sue me when I have absolutely no money or assets whatsoever..... just an old paid off Honda that's like 10 years old and not much to look at....

[Minnymouth]

Oh yeh, they can still sue you and take anything that you might have in the future......

You are responsible for the insurance on the property/home until the foreclosure takes place.

If you REALLY WANT SOME SERIOUS PROBLEMS, let something happen on that property (fire or injury) and you with no insurance on it.

Best be keeping some kind of insurance on it till its foreclosed on.....

Question? Are you filing bankruptcy or just letting your house/property go into foreclosure?

[FreshLikeADaisy]

What Minny said.

[cityish]

Thank you for your feedback.

No I am not filing bankruptcy, just trying to avoid foreclosure as best I can, paying all of my other bills on time, asking a rock bottom price and hoping that someone will take it or that maybe we could even do a short sale.

What if the foreclosure/sales process drags out for the next eight months? It would cost over a thousand dollars for me to hang on to that insurance.

I have kept the utilities and water turned on but that's running about $100 a month -- to keep the sprinklers running to prevent the lawn from drying up, to keep the air circulating so that mold and mildew don't get started. This is in hot and humid Florida, and it's a big, rambling old 85 year old house in a historic district. I have security lights and timer lights inside with radios on, to make it look and sound like someone is living there at night. I don't have the air conditioning turned on, just the ceiling fans.

Should I cut the lights off, let the mildew start growing up on the walls, let the lawn turn into a dustbowl and put that $100 or so toward the house insurance? It seems to me that then I would have absolutely no hope of selling the house.

Do you mean that if the house caught fire, say from a lightning strike at night, that I could get sued? What if nobody were in the house during a fire --- would the mortgage company sue me for not maintaining insurance on it? Since hardly anyone will be viewing the property it seems like the odds would be astronomical that someone would be seriously injured while viewing the property (the real estate market is a blood bath down here in Orlando right now. Something like 40,000 houses on the market and only 200 sold last month)....

Sorry for all of these questions but I am new to all of this .... I am nervous over the idea of being liable and vulnerable to a lawsuit but I just don't have any money right now. My car broke and I am literally taking the bus because I can't afford to repair the car. The house insurance costs $150 a month.

[cityish]

Maybe I should think about cancelling my contract with the realtor so that nobody can set foot on the property once the house insurance expires.

That way I guess the only people who could possibly be injured there would be trespassers...and we do have a couple of those in the neighborhood. I would think if they were on the property illegally, they wouldn't have much grounds to sue me for something or other...

[HHM]

The home insurance issue is all about your comfort for risk. The fact is, the odds are in your favor that nothing will happen, so whether you should maintain insurance depends on your aversiveness to risk.

Foreclosure takes the house as is. As long as the house is still standing, and you haven't done "intentional" damage, the bank has no recourse to go after you for incidental damage.

You have two options, continue to try to sell it (in which case you need to keep it in show condition), or let it foreclose. If you let it foreclose, you can turn everything off and just walk away. As I already said, the choice to maintain insurance is dependant on your assessment of how much risk you are willing to bear.

[cityish]

Maybe I could contact the insurance company and inquire about renewing the policy at a lower rate? Maybe I could just insure it for liability purposes in case someone were injured, vs. insuring it to cover damages to the structure that I own. I wonder if there is such a thing....


For instance right now I have renter's insurance and it is only $12 a month to insure my belongings and protect me from damages if someone is injured in my apt.

[grndmom53]

Won't the mortgage company put insurance on the house if the owner doesnt keep up the policy?

[HHM]

Won't the mortgage company put insurance on the house if the owner doesnt keep up the policy?

Correct, if the current policy expires, usually the mortgage company is notified and then they will put forced placed insurance on the house and those charges, like anything else, would not be your responsibility once you filed BK.

[MajorMike]

Did your income drop and that's why you can't afford the mortgage? Is the rent a lot cheaper?
What about renting your home to someone instead of selling?

[dadkrs]

Have you tried a "short sale". Ask the realtor. Make sure they have dealt with them in the past.

[yak411]

Cityish-I am going through the same thing with my house...just moved this weekend. My escrow just paid my homeowners insurance up for another year. I am also concerned about my lawn and care about my neighbors as well.(talked about it in earlier posts). I will be having all utilities cut off in the next week and plan to have a neighborhood kid cut the lawn for the summer. It should be pretty cheap and I have no intention on cutting it myself or running into old neighbors!