So then, these people stopped paying, are legally off the hook, and get to own the houses free and clear??? What the heck???
But isn’t there still a lien on the property if they ever try to sell the house, the lien being the mortgage??? Maybe I’m missing something? Seems to me the mortgage lien is still there even if the mortgage holder missed the five year deadline to foreclose and evict the residents.
The statute of limitations for collecting on the unpaid debt has expired, assuming the person actually made no payments in the five years.
The mortgage debt can still then be linked to the house and must be paid if sold, but cannot be used for force a sale in some of these cases.
The problem is that in many cases, the backlog of foreclosures is taking years to process, especially with law firms that had fake paperwork (dead people signing off on forms as the paralegal, backdated forms, etc) that forced the cases to be refiled, adding to delays.