johnson
07-19-2010, 08:37 AM
Could someone please give us some advice? My husband had a piece of commercial property that went into foreclosure. The loan was taken out in the name of the corporation (no longer in business) based on an over inflated appraisal. The property was "valued" by the bank at $750K in 2002, but was on the market for over 3 years for $150K and never sold. The bank purchased back the property at auction in 2008 for $65K and have now served us with a judgement for the balance of $183K.
We have few assets, mainly our home (first mortgage) and a small business (free of liens). We have tried to "settle" for a lesser amount but they are now sending letters threatening to have the sheriff seize our property and begin to sell it off to satisfy this debt. Is there anything we can do? We are at wit's end. We've consulted several attorneys for info on bankruptcy but have been told that we would have to sell our home and possibly business before we could file. There seems to be no attorney in our area that can answer our questions regarding this situation.
Our concern is the amount left on the note. It doesn't seem fair that we received money on an unfair and over inflated appraisal. It almost seems that at some point there should be a class action suit against the banks that participated in this sort of thing which of course has led to the collaspe of our housing market and our economic issues.
So my questions are...
1) Is is possible to settle this sort of debt and what approximate % of the debt can we expect them to take?
2) Is the threat of seizure just a threat?
3) How can we protect our few remaining assets?
4) Does the fact that the loan was taken out in the name of a corporation protect us at all?
5) Does anyone know of any class actions suits pending against banks for their unfair appraisal techniques used during 2002?
Please help us if you can...
We have few assets, mainly our home (first mortgage) and a small business (free of liens). We have tried to "settle" for a lesser amount but they are now sending letters threatening to have the sheriff seize our property and begin to sell it off to satisfy this debt. Is there anything we can do? We are at wit's end. We've consulted several attorneys for info on bankruptcy but have been told that we would have to sell our home and possibly business before we could file. There seems to be no attorney in our area that can answer our questions regarding this situation.
Our concern is the amount left on the note. It doesn't seem fair that we received money on an unfair and over inflated appraisal. It almost seems that at some point there should be a class action suit against the banks that participated in this sort of thing which of course has led to the collaspe of our housing market and our economic issues.
So my questions are...
1) Is is possible to settle this sort of debt and what approximate % of the debt can we expect them to take?
2) Is the threat of seizure just a threat?
3) How can we protect our few remaining assets?
4) Does the fact that the loan was taken out in the name of a corporation protect us at all?
5) Does anyone know of any class actions suits pending against banks for their unfair appraisal techniques used during 2002?
Please help us if you can...