Buying a Home owner fiananced but owner filing Bankruptcy

[goingcrazy2x]

Arkansas


My husband and I were buying a home and 12 acres from a man in Calif. we made every single payment to the mortgage company directly so i know that the payments were made on time every month. I also made two payments when we moved in to get them caught up. Now he has filed bankruptcy and we are losing our home that we have had for a year. I have three kids and dont have good credit, I am working on fixing that, But no one will give us the loan. is there any thing that we can do to save our home. if not how long do you think that we will have to get out of home.

Thank you in advance for any help someone can give us.

Christy

 

[nextwife]

Do you have a recorded contract for deed/Land contract?

 

[Ozark_Sophist]

A local family has 15 years of payments on a house bought as ren to own. Contract for deed was not recorded as it should have been by law. Owner now bankrupt. Family has to move out in less than month. They was less than five years from completing the contract and had spent money upgrading house (new porch, siding, electric). Now they have to start from scratch. Their children, some now teens, have never lived anywhere else.

 

[angelou]

Now, here I would suggest investing a little bit of money on a lawyer. From what I understand the money you have paid is owed to you now that the seller is filling bankruptcy, all the people that the seller owes money to will be getting a piece of any assets the seller has so your lawyer could help you get somewhere near the top of the list of people who will be able to recover money from the seller. Because this is a home and you have a contract for that house you might have first dibs on it or at least first dibs on recovering your money.

 

[FlyingRon]

It appears there is no written contract here (recorded or otherwise). The fact that you made payments in someone else's name doesn't mean much, otherwise i could go start paying mortgages on people who were defaulting and lay claim to their property without participating in the lender's foreclosure.

 

[angelou]

Christy, did you sign a contract with the seller of the house? I did not see that in your OP. If you did, please find yourself a lawyer so that they can place you in the list of creditors who were let down by the seller of the house. Good luck.

 

[cheezehed]

Christy I'm not an attorney but it seems like there are a few things you need to address or find out:

1. Did you have a contract? Even if it's not written, a verbal can be binding...it's just a hell of a lot harder to enforce.

2. How do you know you're losing your house? Did you get a notice from the mortgage co? Most of the time it takes 3 missed payments, unless the owner has done something different....like surrender the home or something.

3. I would imagine you can possibly put a lien on the property, but you should contact a lawyer to do it properly. That will put you in the line of creditors at least.

4. Maybe you could deal with the mortgage co. directly? Most of them have gone thru so many foreclosures they don't really want to do it again. Even with the credit crunch, they might be willing to make concessions and provide financing instead of putting it up on the auction block and losing their asses.

Just throwing out my 2 cents.

 

[TimStudiesLaw]

1. Did you have a contract? Even if it's not written, a verbal can be binding...it's just a hell of a lot harder to enforce.

More like unenforcable than enforceable. Google "statute of frauds".

 

[cheezehed]

Tim thank you for the enlightenment. As I said I'm not a lawyer but from what I know it depends on the jurisdiction as to whether a contract for real property has to be in written form, but it does make sense that all states would require it. I would contact a lawyer in Arkansas and get some advice asap.

 

[FlyingRon]

The statute of frauds in the US is most often embodied in the Uniform Commercial Code which all 50 states have enacted in some form. Arkansas most certainly does under their commercial code require real estate transactions to be in writing.

Other than the advice to get a lawyer, the rest of your post is nonsense.