How Much Time Do we Have?? Please help

[ufbrad24]

My wife and I received our Chapter 7 discharge in February, 2010. We did not reaffirm our mortgage. We continued making payments through last December but have not paid since then. We started receiving correspondence from Wells Fargo in February and I just saw on the online court docket that the summons was issued, lis pendens filed, etc. on March 25th. We live in Hillsborough County, Florida.

We have no intention of keeping the house and are planning to move to the Jacksonville area the beginning of July. So we need a place to live for approximately three months until I start my new job in Jacksonville. How long will we have until we are forced out of the house? Will it take more than 3 months from this point? Any advice or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

[cory1848]

My wife and I received our Chapter 7 discharge in February, 2010. We did not reaffirm our mortgage. We continued making payments through last December but have not paid since then. We started receiving correspondence from Wells Fargo in February and I just saw on the online court docket that the summons was issued, lis pendens filed, etc. on March 25th. We live in Hillsborough County, Florida.

We have no intention of keeping the house and are planning to move to the Jacksonville area the beginning of July. So we need a place to live for approximately three months until I start my new job in Jacksonville. How long will we have until we are forced out of the house? Will it take more than 3 months from this point? Any advice or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

Welcome neighbor! Do you have 3 months? You probably have close to 2 years if you want. I am in a similar situation as you except I stopped paying August 2009. File BK7 September 09, discharged 1/2010 and had the LP filed 4/2010. I am still here and waiting...Next week will be 1 full year since the LP was filed. I have documented everything in another thread on here, but to make a long story short, I hired a lawyer to initially fight it to buy time. Everyone told me I would have 4-8 months then be kicked out. Once I got my lawyer involved, the case stalled. Through some legal challenges to the suit, the original requirement to answer was delayed 6 months. At that time, I filed the answers to the LP and have heard nothing back since. We had planned to moved and be out by xmas time but since nothing has happened, we decided to stay put and save. Staying put is probably the best decision we could have made. I have enough put away that I could move this weekend if need be. Plus I am paying off bills that were not discharged in BK. By the end of the year, I will have 2 vehicles paid off and a good dent in my student loans. My goal is get 100% debt free from loans. So far it is working. What has gone is the stress and the worrying of how we will make bills.

My advice would be to stay put and save all the money you can. It can only help you.

[ufbrad24]

Thank you for the response, Cory. I have been doing what you discussed (paying off bills, cars, etc) over these past few months with the extra money I was paying towards the mortgage. How long after the lis pendens was filed were you served? I guess my question is if we do not retain an attorney, will we still have three months, or is it necessary to hire an attorney to file the appropriate responses, etc to buy us the extra time?

[cory1848]

Thank you for the response, Cory. I have been doing what you discussed (paying off bills, cars, etc) over these past few months with the extra money I was paying towards the mortgage. How long after the lis pendens was filed were you served? I guess my question is if we do not retain an attorney, will we still have three months, or is it necessary to hire an attorney to file the appropriate responses, etc to buy us the extra time?

I think it was like 2-3 days. You will receive it anyday now. Don't worry, it will come. Your 20 days response time starts once you are served. If you don't want to delay things, you don't have to do anything, if you want to delay things, I would suggest hiring a lawyer. It will probably run you in the $1500 range to file answers, etc.

Right now your timeline would be like this... Served today, you will have to 20 calendar days to answer which brings you to April 18. If you don't answer the bank will file for summary judgement. That hearing will take minimum 30 days to schedule. So now you are at May 18th, Once they grant summary judgement, another hearing is set for the sale day. Most likely that would be 60 days if they move quickly. That brings you to July at the earliest. Going on current cases, without fighting it, I would guess 8-12 months easy from last payment. Things are that slow UNLESS you have equity. Keep in mind, the time it takes for the 20 days to expire and then for the lawfirm to initiate the next step could be anywheres from a week, to 3 months. You never really know.

My current house has now lost 46% of its original value when we bought it. That coupled with the law firm that issued the LP being investigated by the state for fraud, well lets just say they are not in a hurry to get my house back. I am at 18 months currently and expect to be here though the new year. If you have equity, I can only guess things would move a lot quicker.

[ufbrad24]

Definitely no equity in the house, approximately $110,000 underwater. By filing an Answer to the Complaint, how much more time would that buy me, even if I never filed anything else? I'm feeling pretty safe that I can stay here until July 1, but want to do what I can to ensure that. I am an attorney (granted, not in foreclosure defense) but I would be able to file an answer if it will buy me some extra time. Thanks again!

[cory1848]

Definitely no equity in the house, approximately $110,000 underwater. By filing an Answer to the Complaint, how much more time would that buy me, even if I never filed anything else? I'm feeling pretty safe that I can stay here until July 1, but want to do what I can to ensure that. I am an attorney (granted, not in foreclosure defense) but I would be able to file an answer if it will buy me some extra time. Thanks again!

Well if you are an attorney, filing should come easy to you. It was like another language to me, and I tried to figure it out on my own and gave up. As far as defenses go, I would look through the county clerks website for current and past cases to see how those were answered. Most are just answered "Denied" with a reason, etc. If you have the means, I say go ahead an file the answers. Just wait until the end of the time period. If you file them tomorrow, you lose 19 days, etc.

What my lawyer did was instead of filing the answers, he filed a motion to dismiss with discovery based on the account that a security cannot foreclosure. That motion bought us 6 months. Once that expired, we filed the answers. A lot of people I have heard bought more time just by attending the hearing and asking the judge for more time to move. Seems to get you 2 months just for that. Judges seem to sympathize with the defendants with these cases. I would not worry about July. Like I mentioned earlier, You could look forward to next July if you wanted.