<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by liebebears:
My husband and I purchased a house in which, for whatever reason only his name went on the loan, but both names went on the title. Now we have gotten a divorce and I have remained in the house and made the payments for 6 months from my personal account. Now, I find out he has filed bankruptcy and has surrendered the house! Our divorce has been final a long time, but the property issues have yet to be taken care of through the courts. Can the bank take the house if my name is on the title? What should I do? I need to get this done quickly! Thanks<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Contact the bank and explain the circumstances and ask them what financing options are available in order for you to keep the property. Will they allow you to assume the existing mortgage to take your ex off or will they require a total refinance. An assumption of mortgage is usually cheaper and faster saving points, appraisal fee etc. than refinancing. You should get a copy of the title report to see if there are other liens on the property such as a second mortgage, creditor judgements, tax liens etc. If there are other encumbrances on the property, the bank would want these resolved in order for the property to have clear title with only their first mortgage as the only encumbrance. Compare the market value of the property with the principal mortgage balance. Hopefully the mortagage balance is a lot lower than the value of the home creating a good equity position. If the equity is small you need to decide whether to keep this property or let it go and buy another one. Tracey is correct in that you should hire a real estate attorney. Depending on if there are other creditors that are ony your ex's that may have recorded interests on title, and if the creditors are secured or unsecured, the better option may be to buy the property from the bankruptcy court at the secured creditors principal balance. This is based on reasoning that all amounts your ex owes to any unsecured creditors will be discharged in bankruptcy. The attorney also needs to confirm what type the bankruptcy was filed whether Chapter 7 or 13 and the Federal and State homestead laws which may apply. This attorney should also contact the Bankruptcy Court to work with the Trustee on approving your method of recovering the property.
If the bank is not contacted by you, the bank attorneys only have the bankruptcy documents to go on and will assume that your ex just plans to have the bankruptcy court sell the property to pay off the bank loan. The bank will just go along with this to protect their interest.
