Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. I am
only publishing my interpretation of my situation. You should seek your
own legal representation for your own particular
situation. Do not rely on my
opinions or statements for your own purposes as state
and local law varies as do individual circumstances.
A foreclosure sale date has been set for one of my
condos. This is the third foreclosure sale date that has been
set on this property. One in December was the first date set.
That one was cancelled by the bank (Wells Fargo), but they did
not specify why. A second foreclosure sale date was set for
February, but that was cancelled by the bank as well. Although
the bank did not specify why the second sale date was cancelled,
that was around the time that the Obama Administration announced
plans for a new foreclosure initiative. Unfortunately, nothing
in Obama's foreclosure initiative really applied to me and my
foreclosure. As such, the bank requested a new foreclosure sale
date around the first of the month. The court set a sale date
for May 12.
This is good. I am
anxious to be done with this property. Every month, I am paying
condo fees and special assessment fees (from Hurricane Ivan
dating back to 2004) and electricity bills. Comparable
properties in that same condo complex have been selling for less
than half of the mortgage that I have on that property. Prices
are not expected to recover to the dollar amount that I have on
the house for many, many years - I would guess over ten years at
least.
When the property had the
first foreclosure sale date back in December, I had the power
turned off. Then, the bank cancelled the foreclosure sale date
so I turned the power back on (for a fee from the power
company). This time, I will wait to see if the foreclosure sale
date actually happens and is not cancelled. Plus, it takes about
ten days after the foreclosure sale date to transfer the title
of the property from me to the bank here in Escambia County,
Florida. Still, as long as the sale date is not cancelled, I can
turn off the power anytime after May 12.
A big question on my mind
is when to stop paying the condo fees. I plan to make the May
payments which are due May 1. I do not plan on making any
payments after that on this property as the title will have
changed over to the bank, and the bank is then responsible for
condo fees and such. I see some possibility that the condo
association may try to collect another month of payments from me
as I would have owned the property on the first of the month or
the condo association might ask me to pay a prorated amount.
Either way, I will refer it to my lawyer for his opinion. One
thing is for sure, I do not want this to end up back in Small
Claims Court like the last time unless my lawyer feels confident
that we could win the case. Even if he is confident that we
could win the case, I probably would not go to Small Claims
Court unless my lawyer agrees to waive all of his fees and pay
the judgment if we lose the case (I will certainly ask this, but
it is unlikely that my lawyer would agree to this).
Come back for an update
after May 12th.
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