FL real estate laws regarding purchase and sale, foreclosure, short sale of home

Riverview, FL Viewed 712 times. Posted about 1 year ago in Real Estate

Real Estate/Debt: My wife and I purchased a home in a little over a year ago and would like to know what options we would have for "short selling" the home and debt reduction (loan/credit cards) because of health issues of single mother with children grand-daughter. Now my wife will be leaving her position in December because of stress. We would like to return to our home state of PA to assist the grand-daughter. Our loan on the home has PM Insurance. Does that would help us dealing with the lender? We would like to prevent going to forclosure. Iam on SS and she is a year away from Social Security.

Answers (2)

Marci A. Rubin

This attorney is licensed in Florida. Posted about 1 year ago.

Based on the small amount of information in your question, bankruptcy may prevent the home from going into foreclosure. You should find a local bankruptcy attorney. Banks are entertaining short sales these days but you will need to have a buyer ready to make a definitive offer in order to present the short sale contract and package to the lender. There are many real estate agents who are working to list homes that are in short sale situations. You should be in contact with your bank to either do a work out with them and/or to find out about their short sale requirements to try and prevent or delay a foreclosure while you try and find a buyer. Be sure to try and have the bank wipe out the deficiency presented by the short sale. Not all banks will do this and consumers are not aware of this. The PM insurance will not be of much help to you as the consumer in most situations. Check with the provider and the bank.

Margery Ellen Golant

This attorney is licensed in Florida and 1 other state. Posted about 1 year ago.

You can contact your lender to see if it will consider approving a short sale or deed in lieu of foreclosure )that means you deed the property back to the bank). Based on what you say about your finances, it may be that the bank will go along, since it will not pay them to spend the money to foreclose/

It is also possible that a Chapter 7 Bankruptcy would make sense for you. Depending on your household income total, you may qualify, and if so, you could discharge your credit card debts and the mortgage, and move back to Pennsylvania and start over again. PM insurance would not help you - it is for the benefit of the lender, if it has to foreclose and does not get out of the foreclosure enough to cover the amount it loaned.

A short sale would not do any more for you than a deed in lieu of foreclosure; it involves getting your lender to agree to accept less than the total mortgage payoff, to allow you to sell your house to a third party for less than you owe. Realtors are very eager to get people to do this because they make a commission, but it still shows on your credit as a negative.

Golant & Golant, P.A.