Mom died in 2000, brother was taking care of her, he and I became joint owners of the house. He had been living in the house with her, continued to live there. He asked me to co-sign on a mortgage, to pay his debts and some of hers. I agreed (foolish of me). The house was assessed at $80,000; the mortgage was for $42,000. He paid about $3,000 total on the mortgage, most of which went for interest, then he defaulted. We found out about the default in January 2005, spent too much money on credit card for paint, paint brushes, etc, trying to fix it up so it would sell. We finally got an offer in October, but buyer had financing trouble; finally all approved and then we find out real estate agent neglected to get up-to-date payoff figure - the amount offered, which we had agreed on, was $4,000 short. We didn't have $4,000 to give the bank, to make the deal go through. House is now in foreclosure; we were planning to use about $10,000 of the proceeds to pay off our credit card, and the rest toward our own dream house. We now have about $4,800 going out every month, and $3,000 coming in. :eek: Due to depressed real estate market, the house we're living in now, which we're thinking of selling, is not likely to sell for what we owe on it. Considered suing real estate agent, lawyer said no, but we could sue my brother - but this is not practical, due to his finances and job history, we'd be lucky to get a dime out of him. Is bankruptcy a good idea?
