Court Rules Against Us
I just returned from Harford County Circuit Court this morning concerning our Florida home. As I have previously shared, we have been unable to sell the home and stopped making payments in April 2008. The court case today was with SunTrust who holds our secondary mortgage for which we owe $70,000.
SunTrust gave us the loan in 2006 based on their appraisal of our home at between $185,000-225,000. We were renting the home out for a monthly profit of around $250. About six months after we moved, our insurance and taxes doubled. Due to this we were losing money each month. We informed the renters that we would need to increase the monthly rental upon renewal and they chose to move out without paying for their final month.
We then continued paying on the home at a loss of about $1100 per month until April 2008 when we notified both banks that we could no longer afford to do so. In total we have already lost approximately $12,000.
Since we did not contest or dispute any of SunTrust’s claims in court today, the court found against us. We now have a court ordered mandate to pay SunTrust the $70,000 plus interest, court fees and legal fees. We should receive notification of this from SunTrust within a month. Following that, SunTrust will attempt to collect it through various methods, including summoning me to court to testify to my income and expenses, attaching it to my salary, etc. I did share with SunTrust’s lawyer my salary information and he felt that since we will owe about twice my salary that he could not see any options for us in making a deal with SunTrust, but he will contact me if something does come up. I told him that our only real option would be to declare bankruptcy so we can try to protect our home in Maryland.
Our primary mortgage company is also suing us for the $65,000 that we owe them plus interest, court fees and legal costs.
SunTrust gave us the loan in 2006 based on their appraisal of our home at between $185,000-225,000. We were renting the home out for a monthly profit of around $250. About six months after we moved, our insurance and taxes doubled. Due to this we were losing money each month. We informed the renters that we would need to increase the monthly rental upon renewal and they chose to move out without paying for their final month.
We then continued paying on the home at a loss of about $1100 per month until April 2008 when we notified both banks that we could no longer afford to do so. In total we have already lost approximately $12,000.
Since we did not contest or dispute any of SunTrust’s claims in court today, the court found against us. We now have a court ordered mandate to pay SunTrust the $70,000 plus interest, court fees and legal fees. We should receive notification of this from SunTrust within a month. Following that, SunTrust will attempt to collect it through various methods, including summoning me to court to testify to my income and expenses, attaching it to my salary, etc. I did share with SunTrust’s lawyer my salary information and he felt that since we will owe about twice my salary that he could not see any options for us in making a deal with SunTrust, but he will contact me if something does come up. I told him that our only real option would be to declare bankruptcy so we can try to protect our home in Maryland.
Our primary mortgage company is also suing us for the $65,000 that we owe them plus interest, court fees and legal costs.
Comments