Posted on 10/14/2014 10:06:40 AM PDT by Olog-hai
Many thousands of Americans who lost their homes in the housing bust, but have since begun to rebuild their finances, are suddenly facing a new foreclosure nightmare: debt collectors are chasing them down for the money they still owe by freezing their bank accounts, garnishing their wages and seizing their assets.
By now, banks have usually sold the houses. But the proceeds of those sales were often not enough to cover the amount of the loan, plus penalties, legal bills and fees. The two big government-controlled housing finance companies, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, as well as other mortgage players, are increasingly pressing borrowers to pay whatever they still owe on mortgages they defaulted on years ago.
Using a legal tool known as a “deficiency judgment,” lenders can ensure that borrowers are haunted by these zombie-like debts for years, and sometimes decades, to come. Before the housing bubble, banks often refrained from seeking deficiency judgments, which were seen as costly and an invitation for bad publicity. Some of the biggest banks still feel that way. …
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
The loan I could see getting is to complete a 1-year or so program at a technical school, and be employable. Then, when that's paid off use money made working for college courses.
Did none of these people negotiate a short sale? I was hit hard in the Obamaconomy and went completely bust. Lost everything. But I had the sense to call the mortgage company and tell them up front I can not pay the bills. It was a hard negotiation and my credit was hurt (shucks) but I unloaded the house. Anyone who just walked away without any regard to tye contract they signed are fools.
so, somehow the banks and the government conspired to cheat you out of your money....the fact that you bought a house that you couldn't possibly afford had nohing to do with it.....O.K.
Probably some new person going through the “cold case” files.
I agree - there are exceptions to every rule, but the VAST majority are just weasels - not unlike the slimy bankers they decry.
Would you be singing the same song if the banks were loaning for yachts and Lamborghinis in addition to the mansions?
Way to sound like a liberal and ignore personal responsibility.
“It’s not my fault I overspent!!!!”
Way to miss the point. It’s one thing for the government to lean on banks to make these loans after creating economic conditions where people would need them (not all, though), and another to afterwards rip out the economic rug from under both lenders and borrowers. And of course, the worse thing is the ever-harder push leftward.
Holder shook down the banks for billions because they did what they were asked to do by the government and gave loans out too generously. So, I guess it’s only fair for the banks to shake down the folks who borrowed beyond their means.
Yes i know, it’s not the poor schmucks fault.
He needed that loan to get more house than he could afford. He was forced to sign, gun to the head.
And you know all about that how? Truly you have no idea of which you speak. Stick to the facts, and save the sanctimonious posturing for a different forum.
You might recall that we had a little bit of a recession. Twelve to fifteen million people, including quite a number of Freepers, lost their jobs and couldn’t find new ones. (Not coincidentally, twelve to fifteen million illegals were here trying to get jobs at the same time, but who’s counting?) Some of those jobs never came back. People lost jobs but couldn’t sell their houses because no one was buying—no one could obtain financing. So job loss = foreclosure. I believe more foreclosures resulted from job loss than from being crooked weasels.
I'm sorry. But there are always jobs to be had - I cannot fathom that the majority of conservative Freepers who lost their houses could not find any employment anywhere.
"Conservative" usually equates to having a great deal of common sense and fortitude - not frivolity and victimhood. Get a damned job, man, doing something. Dump the video games and change tires at a truck stop or stock shelves in a grocery store for crying out loud.
Oh, that’s right. I forgot. A job stocking shelves is going to pay the mortgage on a house a man bought back when he was an executive.
And you may not have gone so far as to notice whom you are addressing? but I’m a lady, not “man.” And I profoundly resent the complacency and even arrogance that makes you imagine any Freeper was playing video games (what?!) during the recession instead of struggling all day every day to obtain the most menial job.
And by the way, I need no lectures from you on frivolity. My boy and I ate deer we harvested, back before he enlisted in the Marines. I went out into the woods to find fallen trees, cut them up myself, hauled them home, and split them for firewood to help heat the house. It was 52 degrees in the house last winter. I make clothes and curtains, shop at Goodwill, raise and can vegetables, so my own repairs with my power tools. I am now working as a stable hand, shoveling manure and caring for ten horses—hard physical labor in every sort of weather. I am a sixty-year-old lady with a couple of serious chronic illnesses. So kindly refrain from telling me that I need to be less frivolous or exhibit more fortitude.
I'm taking about those who would rather default on their mortgage than take a job that is "beneath" them, all the while playing the victim.
I'm not about to list all of the "lousy" jobs I've had between good ones, but they all paid me more than nothing. Something is always better than nothing.
As another Freeper mentioned above, as soon as they lost their "good" job, they contacted the mortage company and started the conversation - most banks also know that "something is better than nothing", but one just can't ignore the freight train barrelling down on them and not expect somthing bad to happen..
I have probably given you the impression that I lost my house to foreclosure, and am bitter about it. In fact, I didn’t lose it in that sense; for many years the plan was to sell it as soon as the last kid grew up and joined the USMC. And that’s what happened. I did try to sell it just before the recession hit, but without success—nobody could get a loan. So I hung onto it, with great difficulty and many sacrifices, until I was finally able to get it polished up and sold a few months ago. Now I’m shopping for a farm.
Still, it was a very close call. My mortgage lender was not operating in a legal manner. Many good people who were not as lucky as we were did find themselves homeless.
I would not have gotten through this, and might not even be alive, if it weren’t for some kind friends who taught me and the boy about hunting.
Strangely enough, as miserable as things were for awhile there, I’m almost glad it happened. Not many moms get to bond with their children while field-dressing a huge buck and working well into the night to drag it home. We are better for the experience of struggling together. God has a plan.
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