Inherited home with defaulted mortgage that was never foreclosed

[Nicho Pruett]

HELP - What should I expect when negotiating?

Background:

I inherited my childhood home only to find out that my mother refinanced it 15 yrs ago for $70K. She made payments (about $25k) up until about 7/8 years ago and stopped due to financial and medical issues. The loan went into default. She’d been banking with this credit union for over 40 years; so they were kind enough to not foreclose. I think they “wrote it off as a loss”. Whatever they did, the head of their debt collections told me they never planned to come after her for the money and instead would wait until she passed to collect.

Issue:

Since she stopped paying, the fees/interest have run up to more than the original loan - last I checked the total is about $85k. I am going to meet with the lender to negotiate terms and want to know what I can expect and what is appropriate/will reasonably be accepted.

I’d like for them to forgive all of the fees and let me pay off the balance that was owed at the time she defaulted.

Is this reasonable? What are my chances they’ll accept it? If not reasonable what would be?

Any help/insight is greatly appreciated.

[Stephanie P.]

Originally posted by @Nicho Pruett:

HELP - What should I expect when negotiating?

Background:

I inherited my childhood home only to find out that my mother refinanced it 15 yrs ago for $70K. She made payments (about $25k) up until about 7/8 years ago and stopped due to financial and medical issues. The loan went into default. She’d been banking with this credit union for over 40 years; so they were kind enough to not foreclose. I think they “wrote it off as a loss”. Whatever they did, the head of their debt collections told me they never planned to come after her for the money and instead would wait until she passed to collect.

Issue:

Since she stopped paying, the fees/interest have run up to more than the original loan - last I checked the total is about $85k. I am going to meet with the lender to negotiate terms and want to know what I can expect and what is appropriate/will reasonably be accepted.

I’d like for them to forgive all of the fees and let me pay off the balance that was owed at the time she defaulted.

Is this reasonable? What are my chances they’ll accept it? If not reasonable what would be?

Any help/insight is greatly appreciated.

Nicho

Since you asked the question, "Is this reasonable" I will say absolutely not.  The credit union was good enough to not foreclose on your Mom for 7-8 years and you want to pay off the balance that was owed at the time of default and waive all their fees???  That's waiving at least 6 years of payments, 6 years of taxes and 6 years of insurance not to mention depreciation while your Mom lived there.  Like others have said, "Don't ask, don't get", but that's a pretty huge ask.

I would get an appraisal to find out what it's really worth and then work from there.  It really is going to depend on whether there's equity in the property; that will tell you which way to go.  My guess is there is pretty significant equity.

If there is significant equity and you want to pay the credit union off, renovate the property and rent it out, there are numerous loan products out there to get the property rent ready.  If you intend to live in it, it gets a little more dicey, but there are products out there for that too.  The credit union may even do the loan.

Best of luck

Stephanie