It's out...

Word has gotten out that my husband and I are losing our home. I want to take a minute to clarify, vent and set things straight. it's been a 3 year old story full of lies and deception. oh ok, so it's not that exciting. But trust me, there is that going on. in the spring of 2004 we bought our home at the height of the real estate market when everything was selling for outrageously high prices. Bill had had a few amazing years with his design business and my Creative Memories business was doing better than ever. we decided that we could afford a bigger home, move Bill's office in to save money on office space rent and move my business larger workshops in to save money on rent fees I was paying Hotels. Buying the big house and paying a larger mortgage made sense. a few year later... business started to struggle. we were paying our bills - barely. But we were scraping by. times were really really hard when the economy started to crash for everyone they cut back on paying designers and so my husband's work was affected. my home party sales began to decline. people just weren't spending $300 on scrapbooking supplies at parties anymore. so my business was affected as well. A friend of Bill's worked for a company that advertised they would do all the dirty work for you to get a loan re-modification and help us reduce our mortgage by more than 1/2. It sounded great! We paid the company a couple thousand dollars and started the process. Our mortgage company said we were not eligible for a re-modification since we paid our mortgage. we would have to miss a few months of payments in order to qualify. so, we missed a few months. suddenly we had a red flag and were able to get the help we needed. around this time the above mentioned company our friend worked for that was going to do all the dirty work for us... yeah... well, they went out of business. The money we paid them was gone and we were now in this struggle with our mortgage company to re-modify our loan. On our first run of submitting the initial paperwork the mortgage company says "great looks like we can try out a trial payment amount of several hundred dollars off on your mortgage. go ahead and start paying the new reduced amount while we go through this re-modification process." YAY - right? To be fair and honest, Bill and I are not the most organized people on the planet. Neither one of us is excellent at paperwork. And since we both work for ourselves - paperwork... well... ugh... it's not our strong point. We received the list of all the items the mortgage company needed from us and we began the arduous task of compiling everything, catching up on past months of income and expense reports, finding things we had misfiled (or never filed). It was not fun. faxing in documents... waiting... we get the response from the mortgage company :"there was a missing item we need you to start over." Starting over means that you cannot just resend the same stuff. the last three months have shifted, they want new signature dates on the bottom of documents, they want all new and shiny papers. faxing.... waiting... we get the response: " you were a day late - start over." we start over. faxing... waiting.... we get a response " we are missing a new item they needed that wasn't on the list - start over..." 3 years later... of pure hell with them dragging it out. Every time we have to redo paperwork we have to take time out of work to get it done, or we are up late and tired the next day or we are yelling at each other over dinner. Like I said - not a fun time. It costs us time and money to re-submit everything over and over. it costs us aggravation and stress in our relationship. It is tears wondering if we are going to be able to live in the same house or not. we were wondering and had it drag on for a LOOOOONG time. End of July 2011 - we get a notice on our door that our home is going up for auction August 18th. Bill calls and tries to sort things out and they give us one last chance to "get it right". They give us a date when all the paperwork needs to be in. we take time off work. we lost money and clients. But we dotted every "i" and crossed every "T" and checked and triple checked our work to make sure we did everything they asked and didn't forget a single "yes maam" or signature or period or comma. I mean seriously it toodk days to pull the final chance to get it right for them. Faxed it in a day early - WHEW! YAY! we should be good. everything was just as it was supposed to be. we beat the deadline and we did it all right! YAY! we went out to celebrate that it would be over and we would be ok. waiting... guess what...? NOPE! Sorry! They decided to reject us! Not based on the information provided. technically we should qualify for a re-modification. Guess why they rejected us in the end? no really guess.... BECAUSE THEY TOLD US THE WRONG DATE TO SUBMIT OUR PAPERWORK! We had a couple of days before our home was going up for auction and we were out of ideas. So we went to a lawyer - Nathan Reeves - great guy if you need someone by the way. he gave us a couple of ideas 1 - we could walk away and just let them take the house and pack super fast 2 - we could fight the mortgage company - pay for a restraining order plus legal fees and battle the empire for an expensive drawn out battle we aren't guaranteed to win. it could cost us 10's of thousands of dollars in the end. and we still might lose the home 3 - we could file bankruptcy and buy us some time. we decided to buy us some time. So we have a few months left in our home and then we either walk away or the mortgage company comes back and decides to work with us. I recently found out that the stimulus act pays mortgage companies for foreclosures. Now that is stimulating! I am so stimulated I could punch someone. I am about as stimulated as a bull in shoot getting a shot of stimulus before being let out of that shoot with its rider. I used to be embarrass by the idea that we could lose our home. I am beyond that. I am angry. I would be embarrassed if we had not been able to pay the agreed upon amount for our mortgage. BUT we were paying the amount the mortgage company told us to pay. Here is the other "FUNNY" thing: we currently owe more on our house NOW then we did when we first bought it almost 8 years ago. with interest and fees the mortgage company decided to tack onto our bill for neglect to pay... yeah right.... we now over 280,000 when we purchased it for 270,000 it's only worth about 120,000 in the current market. so, I am ready to be done. I am ready to walk away from this mess. screw em! I'm done. how dare they? The really really sad story? numerous neighbors have had almost identical stories. some have walked away, some have fought and won, some have been kicked out. We ren't the only ones. It is the new AMERICAN story. and it sucks! we are currently packing and downsizing. I figure if we need to leave the home I planned on living in forever, we may as well get something substantially smaller now that our needs have changed. Bill has his studio for work and it is better for him. I have changed my business focus completely and no longer work at home. we've also been using nearly just half the house and have been renting the basement out. so, yeah. downsizing just makes sense right now. needless to say - we are in the market for a new place to live. If you know of a 3 bedroom home that allows a dog and is in the Hurricane Valley for about $600-$700/month (give or take) - let me know. k - thanks. I do not feel sad. I feel good about the idea of moving on. in fact, I'm not so sure I want to work with the bank again if they come back and say they will work with us. I want out of this mess and I want to go on with my life. and that is the story of why the Ennis family is "losing" their home when their current businesses are thriving and they are paying their bills. it makes no sense. but it is what it is.