Mortgage Forum

Mike

Hello everyone, great website from what I've seen so far... :D Here's my story... I currently have an HFC 1st ($95K) and 2nd ($20K) mortgage and a HFC Powerline of Credit ($10K). I originally had an HSBC mortage when my wife and I first bought the house in 2002 but refi'd with HFC in 2005 after we needed some extra money to pay off mounting credit card debt which was probably our biggest mistake. The 2nd mortgage and PLoC were also used for this purpose years later so I'm in the hole to HFC for about $125K. For the last 10 months or so, we've been having problems paying bills after the birth of our 2nd child. We ALWAYS make sure our HFC payments are paid in full (1st and 2nd mortgage are auto-pay) and on time but something has to give so credit card bills and utility bills are often late. After sitting down with a bankruptcy attorney in December, I got a surprise bonus from work so that temporarily cancelled the need for a bankruptcy and allowed us to pay back creditors and utility companies. A 401k loan (another bad decision) and our tax refund have gotten us to April but that money has all but run out. When all is said and done, we're about -$500 every month and have put all of our remaining credit cards in a debt management program with a local reputable company. My in-laws gave us the option to move into my wife's grandmothers house rent free (grandma is in a nursing home) just paying for utilities and property/school taxes. We'd use the money we're giving to HFC now to pay down our existing debt quicker. We jumped at the opportunity and are in the process of hopefully selling our home. :( After being on the market almost 3 weeks, we received and accepted a purchase offer today but that's for $104K and as I said before we're in the hole with HFC for $125K. My realtor who's talking to HFC on our behalf has already started down the path of a short sale but they haven't been very responsive and have been very rude to the point where our realtor is getting rather frustrated. We are submitting a number of collaterals (paystubs, tax returns, bank statements) and a hardship letter (http://www.zinomortgage.org) but from my realtor's preliminary talks it sounds like they aren't that open to a short sale. I guess I wanted to see if anyone had any advice or gotchas so I don't get the wool pulled over my eyes. Can HFC make my life a living hell by refusing to release the lein on my property? :confused: Obviously the PLoC was an unsecured loan so I'd expect to continue to pay that post closing but I would really love to have the 2nd mortgage off of our plate. Thanks in advance for the help! I'll keep everyone posted on my beginning saga with HFC if you're interested... Hopefully it will have a happy ending! :p