If your home is foreclosed, sold at a short sale, or if you give the home back to your lender in satisfaction of your debt, IRS Tax Fact 10 tells us to watch for a 1099-C or 1099-A statement in the mail during the next calendar year.  Lenders are required to send the 1099 forms [...]

Mortgage debt forgiveness is considered to be income unless it is excluded.  Principal residence debt has its own exclusion from income if it is cancelled or forgiven by the lender.  To “qualify” it must be what is defined by the Internal Revenue Service as “qualified principal residence debt”.  The debt must have been used to [...]

In order to qualify for full exclusion from income when debt is cancelled on the taxpayer’s principal residence, the amount of debt cancelled cannot be more than two million dollars for a married couple or individual; or if an individual is married but filing a separate return, the debt cancelled cannot be more than one [...]

The December report of the Congressional Oversight Panel comes as no surprise to consumers and their attorneys; TARP may have prevented a bigger financial crisis for the United States but it has failed to stem the foreclosure crisis

No, the FDIC is NOT paying OneWest a bonus if they avoid loan modification. Despite the allegations of a recently circulated internet video, the FDIC agreement with OneWest Bank does not provide a financial incentive to encourage short sale rather than the modification of delinquent home loans. In fact, OneWest Bank is contractually required to [...]

As a mortgage foreclosure defense attorney, it really burns me up that homeowners are once again getting the short end of the stick.  There is a double standard going on in this real estate meltdown.  Lenders are telling homeowners that they have a “moral obligation” to pay their mortgages, and the failure to do so [...]

Mortgage deficiencies after foreclosure.

Borrowing for a home has been tough ever since the subprime securitized loan market collapsed a couple years ago.  Without government help through the FHA, many such loans would not be made right now.
But although the government is backing FHA, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and shoring up the mortgage market by backing many of [...]

In some states, once bank forecloses and gets your house back, you do not owe them any money.
But not everywhere.
Check with an attorney in your state.
In Michigan, we have foreclosure by publication, an auction process, or through a court.
If the mortgage company bids the amount you owe at the foreclosure auction, you owe them nothing.

When you sell your home for a price that is less than the total debt secured against the property it is often referred to as a “Short Sale”.  Due to falling home prices and booby-trap loans, a short sale is becoming one of the few alternatives to foreclosure. Does it help a hard pressed homeowner [...]