A friend recently came to me with the news that she was convinced to sign off on a mortgage loan 2 yrs ago for her boyfriend’s family so they wouldn’t lose the house. She was 20 at that time she doesn’t know anything about mortgages and didn’t read the loan document, which is a BIG NO, NO. Any way now the family is 4 payments behind and near foreclosure proceedings. I met with the family and they didn’t want to show us the loan document, they have all her personal information. She wasn’t aware that the loan was for $260,000, I’m curious to see how they got her that loan she doesn’t make more than 28,000 a year. I advised her to contact the lender and ask for another copy of the mortgage loan to we take a look and have an attorney review the loan and advice her how to proceed.
Can she get out of this mess?
Is this fraud?
Needless to say she is no longer with they guy, but she is still attached to the family because she is the owner of the house and mortgage. I also told her that since everything is under her name if the open mail under her name that is a federal offense, right? So she can go after them somehow. She is afraid that the family might harm her.
Please advice, she doesn’t want the house she has her own apartment, she just wants this nightmare to end.

Hello Mrs.

I don't know if anyone committed fraud. However, your friend is in a mess. She HAS lots of options depending on how the deal was structured. Of course, nobody knows how that was done, do they?

She needs LEGAL advice. More than that, she needs someone who can DO something to help her. A real estate attorney should be her FIRST stop today.

excon

PS> (edited) She was 20 when she signed the loan?? I don't think she CAN enter into contracts till she's 21. Yup, she needs a lawyer.

She was 19 when she signed the mortgage loan. And this just keeps on getting better, these people that convinced her to sign are not legal residents. I still want to her my hands on the loan document. I suspect fraud.

I advice her to get legal advice, better to be ready to deal with this mess...

What kind of people take advantage of a 19 yr old girl and make her responsible for a house.

I first considered to help her pay the house and evict those people out of the house, but now I think its best that the bank foreclose on the property and help her avoid further damage to herself and credit.

You do realize that foreclosure ruins her credit for 5 years since the house is in her name right? She does need a good real estate lawyer, but more importantly to put in a change of address to their house ASAP for her name and those mortgage bills will go to her instead so they won't be opening them.

She can file a police report and should for fraudlent practices, although she willingly signed paperwork for the loan.

If the mortgage is in her name, then the title should be in her name as well, so she just needs to evict them from what is technically her house.

Then... as you stated you thought about helping her pay the house... why not help her see if she could sell it as a short sale and avoid foreclosure. Having faced both that and a banckruptcy my life since then has been a constant struggle. I would hate to see anyone else go into anything similar without trying other options first.

The other thing to find out is if her loan was FHA or not. They have a program that is called hand the keys over. All she would need to then is get that family out of the house which she can do legally by going to court and filing an eviction notice. (Will take up to 30 days) Then she cleans up the house and turns the keys over to the FHA who will give her $1000 for handing the house over in good condition. It still puts foreclosure on her, but that money will help when she gets hit with taxes for the write off from the mortgage she will be hit with when she goes to file taxes.

Best option though would be to kick them out, You could pay the house current and then help her to sell it.

She should now know to read everything she signs and not to sign anything she doesn't understand no matter how threatening someone is. Poor thing...

This whole thing sickens me... but hopefully some good can come out of it if you are willing to help her get the advice she needs.

The fact that she got a mortgage at 19 is irrelevant because at this point its binding unless you can get the mortgage company to realize they made a mistake, but now she's old enough and it might not matter. But income-wise they shouldn't have approved it.

Oh one more place to check... Have her call the Department of Consumer Affairs in your state and see what they can advise her to do as well. They can at least file or tell her where to file complaints against the mortgage company.

Its not a given that she's also an owner if she signed the mortgage note. But if she is, then she may get the upper hand.

If she is the sole owner, she should immeidately start eviction proceedings against the occupants. Get them out so she can sell the house. If she is a part owner, she can sue them for the arrears and force a sale.

Scott is correct, she may not own the house, unless she signed the deed and was listed on the house, she is merely a co-signer or signer of the mortgage. Also no, a mortgage paper does not contain a lot of private info, the application for the loan does, but not the actual loan papers, they are still lying and to be honest who cares if it tells where they have warts, it is her loan so she has a right to see it.