Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California
My last morgage payment on the SFR rental (in San Diego, CA) was June 2009. From June -September, I was in the process of evicting the tenants who stopped paying rent. Now it is rented again, but because of the arrears, the lender (Bank of America) has sent my file to their delinquency department. I submitted all financial paperwork to show my hardship to see if I can qualify for a loan modification. But the delinquency department said I do not qualify because I have another rental property, as well as my primary residence. My other rental property does not have a positive cash flow, and I can barely make my mortgage payment on my primary residence. I have stopped making credit card payments just so my mortgage on my primary residence will not become delinquent. Should I allow the foreclosure or can I try to negotiate with bank of America for a short sale? Thank you for your time.
1 Answer from Attorneys
First what you should consider is getting your home mortgage modified to help ease your debt burden. You need to be speaking with teh loan modification department not the delinquency department. That is one of the reasons you should hire a lawyer with experiance in loan modificatins to help you deal with Bank of America. All this department is interested in is getting money out of you. So even though they declined you still maybe able to get a modification if you rental house is worth significantly less that what is owed. If you don't want to do that I would definitely do a short sale. Once the bank sees how much they are going to loose sometimes they have a change of heart, but a short sale is better than a foreclosure.
Hope that helps and good luck to you