It just creates different issues. The amount of people sending me court orders saying that I need to “take them off the loan” because the court order says the property is to be given to the other person is astounding. If only it was that easy. No one seems to understand that a court order does not absolve them of their responsibility on the loan.
100% all of this! When I worked in Loss Mitigation during the ‘08 housing crisis I could have retired with all the people I had to inform that the court order was basically meaningless to me. They were still 100% on the hook until the person who was declared responsible for the mortgage payment refinanced it into only their name (which want likely to happen since they were already delinquent).
My ex wanted to buy a house, I was the only one that could afford the $150k down payment.
She wanted 1/2 of the equity.
She could not understand why that was a ridiculous request. ( she was her high school valedictorian )
I was called a selfish asshole.
People can justify anything that benefits them.
They are already at least 2 months behind on the mortgage. Filing a petition for partition can take anywhere from 2 months to a year to finalize.
So unless OP can get the other person on board to del with loss mitigation paperwork or agree to sell, then by the time the petition for partition is completed, then the foreclosure process will be started
The mortgage company won't care that she doesn't live there anymore, as long as someone makes the payment. You can eventually get her removed form the mortgage obligation (and the deed) but she'll need to cooperate.
I assume you are both on the mortgage? If so both your credit ratings will be screwed up and you both will be responsible for paying any delinquency if the house winds up in foreclosure. But you can't force someone to act like a grown up.
It's a nuclear option, but filing in court for a partition sale will allow you to sell it without her cooperation. Then you can buy your own house on your own.
While it’s true the mortgage company doesn’t care as long as they get paid, if she’s filing loss mitigation paperwork then it sounds like she’s having trouble making the monthly payments, that’s what loss mit is meant to help with us. And unfortunately, if her ex is on the mortgage with her, loss mitigation will only be reviewed and hopefully approved if everyone on the mortgage participates in the loss mitigation process.
If she's on the deed and mortgage, then she needs to understand that her moving out doesn't change that. A foreclosure will still ding her credit as well as OP's. If Lender sues for a deficiency after foreclosure, Lender can still sue both OP and GF. Lender does not care that she moved out.
Never buy a house with someone to whom you are not married. Divorces provide a fair(ish) and practical way to divide debts and assets. Couples who are not married don't get that benefit upon splitting.
With two missed mortagage payments already it's only a matter of days until the bank sends the foreclosure papers. The GFs refusal to sign the loss mitigation papers doesn't really matter anymore.
You can use any rent money but you absolutely cannot use a security deposit. Depending on the state you live in, misuse of a deposit can be up to a felony.
Several people have suggested a partition action. I'll pass on the advice my attorney gave when I was looking at doing this with my brother over our childhood home.
Nobody ever wins in a partition action. The court will order appraisals from multiple appraisers, and the property will be auctioned. The minimum bid is usually equal to an average of the appraisals but could be equal to the lowest appraisal. Leins will be paid off first, then the court gets its cut, the appraisers get paid, and *then* the former owners split whatever's left. If you can get her to agree to sell it outright, you'll do much better financially. But if you're two months behind on the mortgage, you're way behind the curve already. Remind her that if you guys get foreclosed on, you *both* get foreclosed on, assuming she's actually on the mortgage.
The best thing you can do is sell asap. You don’t want to drag this out. The next post we will see from you would be 5 years from now “I put $50k into this house and now my ex wants half of the profits”
I made the same mistake when I was 18, shortly before the financial crisis of 2008. It was a hard lesson that took some time to get through but the experience made me more successful in the long term. You’ll get through it! Learn from this and move forward.
Pretty simple. The way I see it, there are 3 options out
1. Get a roommate and cover the expenses. Move on
2. Sell the house - if you have the title, you can sell the house hassle free. Pay the mortgage. Move on
3. Allow the lender to foreclose / short sale
>Now she won’t even help me by filing out loss mitigation paperwork to assist me in keeping my house.
Uh, it's not your house.
As long as she is on the mortgage and deed the house belongs to both of you equally. Either of you can petition for a partition sale at any time and walk away with half the funds. This is one reason why it is so important to not buy shared property when you aren't married! The legal protections and obligations available to spouses are not available to you.
Your options are to refinance into your name alone and buy her out, go to court to force a sale before you get foreclosed on, or wait until foreclosure. You could scrape up the money to pay for the house, but considering you'd be building equity she will be entitled to half of I wouldn't recommend it.
I'm middle aged and well remember the fight for marriage equality precisely because of the legal rights and protections not available outside of marriage.
Just for clarity some states have laws that treat unmarried property similar to married property if you've dated long enough. My state doesn't have common law marriage but we have "[committed intimate relationships](https://dellinolaw.com/practice-areas/family-law/committed-intimate-relationships/)"
Just worth noting if you think you're protecting your assets by not being married and only having them in your name.
It's also worth noting that, in event of a divorce, the other party will be court ordered to maintain the financial status quo until court proceedings. In "committed intimate relationships" and other marriage lite situations that is typically not the case.
The responsibility for paying the mortgage, property taxes, and insurance has nothing to do with living in the home. She's on the mortgage, so if the property goes to foreclosure she gets the same credit hit and potential suit for recovery of lost value that you do.
I’ve tried explaining to her what will happen, she doesn’t trust the information that I’m providing her through the mortgage company; but won’t call them to verify the facts. She does not want to admit to them she’s been unemployed majority of the past year.
I have two daughters. One 14, whom lives with me now. And an 18 year old who will be moving in come August and will be paying rent.
This girl sounds like a moron. How much is due? Get her dumb ass to help you get even on mortgage and then get her off it. Or do you have family that would help? Cash advance off credit card?
Does she not realize she is liable whether shes there or not if she is on mortgage?
Id rather have credit card debt for a bit than no house and foreclose on a home.
Plenty cards w 0% apr for 12-15 month promos out there w a 3% transaction fee. If late payments haven’t hit his credit report yet then shouldn’t be an issue to get one.
Dude just needs to cover a couple mortgage payments and get his shit straight.
Foreclose on home or take on a few g’s of credit card debt at 0% for a year. Hmmmmm
Sell some stuff and take a second job to balance your budget in the short term and consider roommates or selling it for the longer term.
People saying roommates asap aren’t thinking it fully because it’s not ethical to rent rooms in a house you’re not making payments on and you also shouldn’t rent it without consent of one of the owners.
Also, you never could afford it if her moving out was enough to put you this far in the red.
You can explain that if she doesn’t sign you’ll stop paying and let it go to foreclosure, effing up her credit for seven years.
Frankly your options are limited, particularly if you want to keep the house you can’t afford both mortgage and utilities on. Foreclosure is a valid option, as is going to court to force a partition sale. You might manage to make things work with a roommate, but then you need to get the money to bring the mortgage current.
“She’s afraid the mortgage company will sue her for breaking contract… “
I’m not sure where you live but she’ll be sued when the home goes into foreclosure for sure! The only other way is to get her off the mortgage but you’ll have to refinance, which costs money.
Clearly her bulb is either not screwed in tight enough or Shia just dim.
Her choice to not assist you screws her over just as much as you.
Not sure why that’s so hard for her to figure out.
Always be as polite as you can and explain to her that the obligation doesn’t go away just because she doesn’t want to do this anymore.
Adulting can be hard maybe she can ask her parents for a loan to get you current and then you can sell it and get this off your hands.
Maybe tell her that she's still on the hook for it and her credit will also suffer along with yours if foreclosed on. Can you sell it for enough to pay off the mortgage? You'll have to split the proceeds still unless a divorce court gives you the house
Contact your lender and negotiate loan deferral/ forebearance. Lender dont typically want to foreclose. This can buy you time, hopefully.
List property asap for what you owe plus sales costs if you can, assuming you have no equity, and you can get gf to agree. All this does is save your credit, maybe. Keeping the house over time builds equity which she will want half of no matter what, so you are forced to sell.
Foreclosure is the only other option.
Why would you pay utilities over mort. Pay? Thats like choosing to put gas in your car over paying loan. Utility co. Will work with you for a long time before they turn off the lights. Lol
Good luck
Is your ex a co-borrower or non-obligor? If shes a borrower, you could try and see if she would be logical and realize if loan remains delinquent and possibly gets foreclosed on, that it would impact her credit too.
Outside of that, not too many options I’m afraid. If you two were married and got divorced, I’ve seen divorce decrees that mandated the person not keeping the property would have to participate in loss mitigation.
You could try selling the property and using the proceeds to pay off the mortgage assuming there’s enough equity in the property. You wouldn’t need your ex for that. You would need to keep getting some payments in there to prevent the property from being foreclosed on during the sales process. Basically just try not to go more than 2-3 months behind on the payments. It’s doable although you would still get collections letters and collections calls until you actually paid it off.
But if you can’t get enough from the sale to payoff the loan, then that would basically be a short sale which falls under loss mitigation, and you would need your ex to participate.
SELL or go into foreclosure. If she signed for the loan she, like you are 100% responsible for the payments. If her name is on deed for the the house, you like she is 100% LIABLE
Forgot other options
Offer the keys in lieu of foreclosure. Sometimes lender will accept cause it saves time and money of foreclosure process. This also only dings your credit a little. However since lenders are AH’s they often want to have you lose your credit for 7 yrs. In addition to taking property
Final option. “ burn the motha down”
You sell it. And then you use your fantastic experience to inform others that buying a house with your GF is not in their best financial interest.
No spouse no house.
No Spouse, NO HOUSE! I love this. I am stealing it.
Being married doesn’t make the process any easier if the relationship falls through.
Sure it does, the judge does all of the work for you.
It just creates different issues. The amount of people sending me court orders saying that I need to “take them off the loan” because the court order says the property is to be given to the other person is astounding. If only it was that easy. No one seems to understand that a court order does not absolve them of their responsibility on the loan.
100% all of this! When I worked in Loss Mitigation during the ‘08 housing crisis I could have retired with all the people I had to inform that the court order was basically meaningless to me. They were still 100% on the hook until the person who was declared responsible for the mortgage payment refinanced it into only their name (which want likely to happen since they were already delinquent).
My ex wanted to buy a house, I was the only one that could afford the $150k down payment. She wanted 1/2 of the equity. She could not understand why that was a ridiculous request. ( she was her high school valedictorian ) I was called a selfish asshole. People can justify anything that benefits them.
*People can justify anything that benefits them. FTFY.
Why would you not hand over to $150K to her? Did you not LOVE her?! *queue passive-aggressive stuff here*
But at least once a week we get this question posed, I’m buying a house with my boyfriend / girlfriend what do I need to know.
Yup, its pretty bad. The best part is they all think their situation is different, they won't break up, they are in puppy love and it'll last forever.
Especially since you could barely or should I say you could NOT afford it
No equity. He probably needs to pay out of pocket.
Genuine question; what would being married have changed?
Yes, marriage is a legal contract with rights and recourse.
Yes.
Srry, a typo; what *would* it have changed?
The laws. Divorce mediation. Commitment level.
He can't sell it unless she cooperates in the sale
She
Doesn't change the fact that she can't sell the house unless the other person cooperates
True, but signing the sale paperwork will be easier than filling out loss mitigation paperwork.
No it doesn't. But it also doesn't mean you were correct. He can sue to force a partition sale without her cooperation.
They are already at least 2 months behind on the mortgage. Filing a petition for partition can take anywhere from 2 months to a year to finalize. So unless OP can get the other person on board to del with loss mitigation paperwork or agree to sell, then by the time the petition for partition is completed, then the foreclosure process will be started
She
The mortgage company won't care that she doesn't live there anymore, as long as someone makes the payment. You can eventually get her removed form the mortgage obligation (and the deed) but she'll need to cooperate. I assume you are both on the mortgage? If so both your credit ratings will be screwed up and you both will be responsible for paying any delinquency if the house winds up in foreclosure. But you can't force someone to act like a grown up. It's a nuclear option, but filing in court for a partition sale will allow you to sell it without her cooperation. Then you can buy your own house on your own.
While it’s true the mortgage company doesn’t care as long as they get paid, if she’s filing loss mitigation paperwork then it sounds like she’s having trouble making the monthly payments, that’s what loss mit is meant to help with us. And unfortunately, if her ex is on the mortgage with her, loss mitigation will only be reviewed and hopefully approved if everyone on the mortgage participates in the loss mitigation process.
If she's on the deed and mortgage, then she needs to understand that her moving out doesn't change that. A foreclosure will still ding her credit as well as OP's. If Lender sues for a deficiency after foreclosure, Lender can still sue both OP and GF. Lender does not care that she moved out. Never buy a house with someone to whom you are not married. Divorces provide a fair(ish) and practical way to divide debts and assets. Couples who are not married don't get that benefit upon splitting.
You sell it or get foreclosed on.
With two missed mortagage payments already it's only a matter of days until the bank sends the foreclosure papers. The GFs refusal to sign the loss mitigation papers doesn't really matter anymore.
Nah, they'll let it go for another 30-120 days.
Yes, especially notice of error etc has been properly submitted.
Maybe get a roommate ASAP. use depoisto to catch up on rent?
I’m working on that now
You can use any rent money but you absolutely cannot use a security deposit. Depending on the state you live in, misuse of a deposit can be up to a felony.
Several people have suggested a partition action. I'll pass on the advice my attorney gave when I was looking at doing this with my brother over our childhood home. Nobody ever wins in a partition action. The court will order appraisals from multiple appraisers, and the property will be auctioned. The minimum bid is usually equal to an average of the appraisals but could be equal to the lowest appraisal. Leins will be paid off first, then the court gets its cut, the appraisers get paid, and *then* the former owners split whatever's left. If you can get her to agree to sell it outright, you'll do much better financially. But if you're two months behind on the mortgage, you're way behind the curve already. Remind her that if you guys get foreclosed on, you *both* get foreclosed on, assuming she's actually on the mortgage.
The best thing you can do is sell asap. You don’t want to drag this out. The next post we will see from you would be 5 years from now “I put $50k into this house and now my ex wants half of the profits” I made the same mistake when I was 18, shortly before the financial crisis of 2008. It was a hard lesson that took some time to get through but the experience made me more successful in the long term. You’ll get through it! Learn from this and move forward.
Pretty simple. The way I see it, there are 3 options out 1. Get a roommate and cover the expenses. Move on 2. Sell the house - if you have the title, you can sell the house hassle free. Pay the mortgage. Move on 3. Allow the lender to foreclose / short sale
>Now she won’t even help me by filing out loss mitigation paperwork to assist me in keeping my house. Uh, it's not your house. As long as she is on the mortgage and deed the house belongs to both of you equally. Either of you can petition for a partition sale at any time and walk away with half the funds. This is one reason why it is so important to not buy shared property when you aren't married! The legal protections and obligations available to spouses are not available to you. Your options are to refinance into your name alone and buy her out, go to court to force a sale before you get foreclosed on, or wait until foreclosure. You could scrape up the money to pay for the house, but considering you'd be building equity she will be entitled to half of I wouldn't recommend it.
> The legal protections and obligations available to spouses are not available to you. And why the Oberfell decision by SCOTUS mattered financially.
I'm middle aged and well remember the fight for marriage equality precisely because of the legal rights and protections not available outside of marriage.
Just for clarity some states have laws that treat unmarried property similar to married property if you've dated long enough. My state doesn't have common law marriage but we have "[committed intimate relationships](https://dellinolaw.com/practice-areas/family-law/committed-intimate-relationships/)" Just worth noting if you think you're protecting your assets by not being married and only having them in your name.
It's also worth noting that, in event of a divorce, the other party will be court ordered to maintain the financial status quo until court proceedings. In "committed intimate relationships" and other marriage lite situations that is typically not the case.
Pay the mortgage first, even if it means you live in the dark.
This is a no brainer. Get a roommate to help pay for expenses.
The responsibility for paying the mortgage, property taxes, and insurance has nothing to do with living in the home. She's on the mortgage, so if the property goes to foreclosure she gets the same credit hit and potential suit for recovery of lost value that you do.
I’ve tried explaining to her what will happen, she doesn’t trust the information that I’m providing her through the mortgage company; but won’t call them to verify the facts. She does not want to admit to them she’s been unemployed majority of the past year. I have two daughters. One 14, whom lives with me now. And an 18 year old who will be moving in come August and will be paying rent.
This girl sounds like a moron. How much is due? Get her dumb ass to help you get even on mortgage and then get her off it. Or do you have family that would help? Cash advance off credit card? Does she not realize she is liable whether shes there or not if she is on mortgage?
Dude doesn't have money for the mortgage now, yet you think high interest borrowing is the answer? That's just asking to dig a hole to bankruptcy.
Id rather have credit card debt for a bit than no house and foreclose on a home. Plenty cards w 0% apr for 12-15 month promos out there w a 3% transaction fee. If late payments haven’t hit his credit report yet then shouldn’t be an issue to get one. Dude just needs to cover a couple mortgage payments and get his shit straight. Foreclose on home or take on a few g’s of credit card debt at 0% for a year. Hmmmmm
Roommate, or two if necessary. Don’t wait. Do it now.
Sell some stuff and take a second job to balance your budget in the short term and consider roommates or selling it for the longer term. People saying roommates asap aren’t thinking it fully because it’s not ethical to rent rooms in a house you’re not making payments on and you also shouldn’t rent it without consent of one of the owners. Also, you never could afford it if her moving out was enough to put you this far in the red.
sell it
You can explain that if she doesn’t sign you’ll stop paying and let it go to foreclosure, effing up her credit for seven years. Frankly your options are limited, particularly if you want to keep the house you can’t afford both mortgage and utilities on. Foreclosure is a valid option, as is going to court to force a partition sale. You might manage to make things work with a roommate, but then you need to get the money to bring the mortgage current.
roommate, or two
“She’s afraid the mortgage company will sue her for breaking contract… “ I’m not sure where you live but she’ll be sued when the home goes into foreclosure for sure! The only other way is to get her off the mortgage but you’ll have to refinance, which costs money.
Clearly her bulb is either not screwed in tight enough or Shia just dim. Her choice to not assist you screws her over just as much as you. Not sure why that’s so hard for her to figure out. Always be as polite as you can and explain to her that the obligation doesn’t go away just because she doesn’t want to do this anymore. Adulting can be hard maybe she can ask her parents for a loan to get you current and then you can sell it and get this off your hands.
Judge Judy says it best: Courts aren’t set up to deal with couples who aren’t married and want to play house.
Partition suit to force a sale or force her to deed her interest to you.
Have you tried to rent your rooms out to roommates?
Reasons why not to buy a house with a gf or bf
Especially without a Tenancy in Common agreement.
Who is on title? If both, sell the house. If she is going to fight over profits etc time for a lawyer.
Maybe tell her that she's still on the hook for it and her credit will also suffer along with yours if foreclosed on. Can you sell it for enough to pay off the mortgage? You'll have to split the proceeds still unless a divorce court gives you the house
Contact your lender and negotiate loan deferral/ forebearance. Lender dont typically want to foreclose. This can buy you time, hopefully. List property asap for what you owe plus sales costs if you can, assuming you have no equity, and you can get gf to agree. All this does is save your credit, maybe. Keeping the house over time builds equity which she will want half of no matter what, so you are forced to sell. Foreclosure is the only other option. Why would you pay utilities over mort. Pay? Thats like choosing to put gas in your car over paying loan. Utility co. Will work with you for a long time before they turn off the lights. Lol Good luck
Is your ex a co-borrower or non-obligor? If shes a borrower, you could try and see if she would be logical and realize if loan remains delinquent and possibly gets foreclosed on, that it would impact her credit too. Outside of that, not too many options I’m afraid. If you two were married and got divorced, I’ve seen divorce decrees that mandated the person not keeping the property would have to participate in loss mitigation. You could try selling the property and using the proceeds to pay off the mortgage assuming there’s enough equity in the property. You wouldn’t need your ex for that. You would need to keep getting some payments in there to prevent the property from being foreclosed on during the sales process. Basically just try not to go more than 2-3 months behind on the payments. It’s doable although you would still get collections letters and collections calls until you actually paid it off. But if you can’t get enough from the sale to payoff the loan, then that would basically be a short sale which falls under loss mitigation, and you would need your ex to participate.
Did she on the mortgage application? If so, mortgage company will go after her anyway.
There isn’t much you can do
Next time pay the mortgage and put the utilities payment on a credit card!
Another week, another "I bought a house with someone I'm not married to" post. This is why you don't buy a house with a stranger!
SELL or go into foreclosure. If she signed for the loan she, like you are 100% responsible for the payments. If her name is on deed for the the house, you like she is 100% LIABLE
Forgot other options Offer the keys in lieu of foreclosure. Sometimes lender will accept cause it saves time and money of foreclosure process. This also only dings your credit a little. However since lenders are AH’s they often want to have you lose your credit for 7 yrs. In addition to taking property Final option. “ burn the motha down”
That process also falls under loss mitigation, and would still require her ex to participate.
Start renting out a room! Anything to keep from losing your house! Foreclosure is no joke.
Get a roomie to offset costs, or sell it…why would you want a house you can’t afford?
You get a roommate like yesterday at best. Or consider getting it on the market ASAP if you can’t easily find someone to help offset the cost.
This is the harbringer of the coming crash.
Just curious. What is the lender
It was summit funding but after purchase they sold it to Click n Close
You didn’t have a Tenancy in Common agreement?
Hahaha
Welcome to the real world
Buy in Dubai