Give your home to the lender, move out, and get some moving cash.
Do you wish your mortgage loan would go away, as your payment just keeps increasing but your home value does nothing but decrease. Forget about your mortgage. Get rightside up again by trading in your home keys for cash and a new lease on life.
If a loan modification or a short sale has failed you, try a deed-in-lieu of foreclosure. This is a change in title on the home deed. Basically, you are legally giving the property back to the lender. In exchange, the lender may release the debt you owe. The U.S. Treasury Department has even offered to give up to $1,500 for homeowners to help with moving expenses, rental deposit, etc. in a program known as “cash-for-keys.”
Stipulations To Deed-In-Lieu Of Foreclosure
There are certain stipulations to a dead-in-lieu of foreclosure:
- The home has to be on the market for sale for a few months with no closed sale.
- The lender needs several weeks to process the paperwork, so it can’t be done too close to an impending sale date. My experience has shown the lender won’t postpone the sale date to accommodate the deed-in-lieu.
- If you have a second loan on the property, the second lienholder must agree to the voluntary title change and cooperate with the first lienholder for the deed-in-lieu to be done.
- The homeowner has to agree to leave the fixtures, appliances, and such and keep the house in good shape. In other words, don’t trash the house before you move.
Overall, a deed-in-lieu of foreclosure is much cheaper for the lender than a foreclosure or short sale, so it can be a win-win situation for both parties. The lender obtains the property in a cost-effective way through a deed transfer and receives an monetary incentive payment from the government. The homeowner has mortgage debt relieved and gets funds to help relocate because of the cash-for-keys program.
Photo Credit: Garrett Beatty at www.flickr.com.
