Hi all - I am looking for some continued advice on a situation I posted about some time ago, with a few updates and general questions. Post is linked below. For a TL;DR - I co-signed a mortgage for my parents house at 19 and have been stuck with it ever since. Original Post
Here are the few updates I have:
-Turns out, I was never the co-signer to the mortgage. I am somehow the PRIMARY borrower. At 19 with a part time job while in college, I was able to be the main borrower for the mortgage.
- I am not sure if the above really matters considering the situation ruined my credit regardless of what type of borrower I was.
- My stepfather attempted to get me to sign a "quitclaim deed" recently while exclaiming: "IT WILL GET YOU OFF THE MORTGAGE!". I think he expects me to be as naive as I was at 19, or something, because I quickly knew that this wasn't true and ended up having to call the mortgage company to prove to him that this wasn't true to which he responded that they "lied to him".
-I was able to get a copy of the original paperwork from the mortgage company and was able to log into their website to see how bad the situation is. They are about 5K (about to be 6K) behind on payments and my step father is attempting a loan modification.
-I have also looked up the original paperwork through the county records. I am on BOTH the deed and the mortgage. I wasn't sure of this before.
-The odd thing I noticed between the mortgage paperwork on file with the county and the paperwork that was sent to me is that the paperwork with the county has my signature, my mother's and my stepfathers'. The paperwork sent to me by the bank only has my stepfather and myself. Through some digging, I found that on the same date, my mom signed a quit claim deed to the house.
-I dont know if the above information is relevant at all, but it strikes me as odd that the county and the mortgage lender would have totally different sets of signatures? Or how my mom could have been removed from the mortgage? Same lender information, same date, same witness... There are all my signatures, the witnesses signatures, etc - but slightly different between the two. Maybe this doesn't actually matter?
-I also question the differences in paperwork but I really don't understand how I was somehow able to become the primary borrower on a mortgage when I didn't even have a full time job. The ENTIRE thing seems very odd and sketchy as hell to me.
Other factors:
- I have no outstanding debt to speak of. I have an emergency fund, work full time with the same company for almost 9 years.
-I recently received an inheritance of 14K from my biological father's side of the family, whom I never knew. It was a nice surprise.
Questions:
-Do I still have an option of declaring bankruptcy? If I am on the deed?
-Is it crazy of me to consider using my inheritance to get the house paid up and current? If I did so, I would then basically need to help them make sure the mortgage stays current... from across the country... for a house that I never asked for and barely ever lived in....
-I make a decent amount as a single person with no children and could potentially aggressively pay off the house over the course of the next three to five years. I wouldn't really have a life but its doable. Would there be a chance that I'd be able to ensure I'd get my money BACK from the sale of the house? Or with my parent's being on the deed - they are still legally entitled to some of that, right? I'd be 36ish and could maybe then think about buying my own house and maybe having kids at least. The bitterness I would feel doing this may cause me to disown them entirely in the end.
-My younger brother works and is in college and has been living there rent free for the past two-ish years. I paid my rent in college so I approached him about doing the same, or contributing SOMETHING, to at least make the above option less horrible for me. He essentially said he would "think about it" and "do what he could" but if it got to be too stressful and interfered with school he would not be willing to pay rent. I tried to explain that at the rate things are going, he's going to HAVE to live on his own for a LOT more, but he wasn't really willing to look at that. My parents' attitude is the same - "he gets stressed too easily". Oh, and he's just about flunked out of school anyways.
My main concern is that if they DO go into foreclosure, that I will have a court decision made against me and essentially lose my inheritance and any savings I have anyways. My parent's don't have jobs (Stepfather works under the table) so even if a court went after them, it wouldn't matter.
I was considering buying a new car with a portion of it (current car is busted and on its way out but still driveable), but I don't really know what my smartest move is here.
I plan on talking to a bankruptcy lawyer anyways but as far as talking to real estate lawyers about forcing a sale or anything like that - this may be difficult to do because I live in Oregon and the house is in Massachusetts.
If anyone has any other tips or anything to add to the above - it would be greatly appreciated.
Submitted June 25, 2018 at 05:27AM by confsedthrowaway0123 https://ift.tt/2Mp049h
