My family is going through some financial hardships and I'm pretty sure that the people we signed our land contract with are going to try to foreclose our home (forfeit our contract). We don't want to lose our home. We are 2 payments past due and trying to get help from the local churches and organizations in our area. We have talked to them about our problems and they just don't care. So it seems like they just want us out. What can we do? I've searched the internet and you can mostly find what the "seller" can do, not what the "buyer" can do. Thank you for any help you can give me.

Tlbailey79

All you can do is go by the terms of the contract. If there are no terms, as far as defaulting, forfeiture or foreclosure goes, then it will be up to the judge or magistrate where the suit is filed.

I'm guessing that no judge or magistrate would rule in favor of the landlord with only 2 payments behind... so your best bet is to work with the mortgage holder and get caught up as quickly as you can.

Is this a mortgage or a contract? Do you own a mobile home and are buying the land? Your use of land contract as opposed to mortgage is curious.

I do agree with Rick that judges are reluctant to turn people out of their homes. But your circumstance may have some caveats.

We have bad credit, so the only way we were able to buy a home was by land contract. It's not a mobile home. It's a 2 story stick built home in a small town ("village"). I guess that's good news that a judge would be the one to agree or disagree to the forfeiture. We have been trying really hard to make the payments. We are just having a bad year. It started with my husband's paycheck being garnished, then he lost all of his overtime. So next year when the garnishment is over we won't have anymore struggling. Plus, I just got a job, so that will help a lot.

Thanks for your help,
Tlbailey79

Make a regular payment as fast as you can and from there make your monthly payment regularly... adding a bit to the past due amount each time.

I'd think that as long as you are only 2 months behind, they'd never win in court if they filed against you.

I'm glad to hear things are looking up for you. Get caught up as fast as you can to protect yourself.

Good luck to you, tlbailey!

Thank you for the support. I wasn't sure if I would get support here or not, because everywhere I've gone online, seems to be for the "seller" and not the "buyer". I know there are people out there that just don't care and don't pay their bills, but we aren't like that. We want to pay our bills. We want to be able to answer the phone without worrying if it's a bill collector. We don't want to be scared every time someone knocks on the door. I want my kids to grow up in this house. We've moved at least once a year since 2000 and I don't want my kids to go through that anymore. I want stability for them. So, I sure hope you're right about the courts possibly being on my side. So, again, thank you for the advice and support.

Tlbailey79:o

Hello, this is one area I work in all the time, I sell almost all of my homes I sell on contracts for deed. In that you do not have your name on the deed or any legal ownership of the property at this point and time.

This is merely a contract, no mortgage. The seller still has their name on all of the deeds and may even have some mortgage on the property to a lender in their name. ( I do on some for my properties)

So all they have to do is follow the exact policy in the contract. If it allows them to find you in default of the contract they can. At that point you change from the buyer of the home on contract of deed to a renter on a month to month basis with no wrintten rental contract.

So they would then merely follow the procedure to evict you as a renter, showing how you defaulted in your contract and so on.
And yes if you owe two months back payments, they will most likely find you in defalut shortly, at least on the third, since often they need your paymnent to make their payment to the bank (maybe)

At least this is how we do it in TN and GA and Al

And sounding bad here this is how and why we sell homes this way, we expect you to default in the loan, because you pay normally a fair size down payment on some of my 50,000 homes I get about 3000 to 5000 down and a contract from 15 to 20 years. ( this is what I learned from my uncle do did this for years and years)

So what we expect since we sell to people with poor credit and normally a poor history of paying bills, is for you to default so we can take them back and resale them, get another big down payment and payments slightly higher than rent plus you pay the taxes and insurance.
It bets the heck out of renting a house normally.

On average I have to take back most of the homes every 3 years. I don't know of anyone that ever actually got their home ( my uncle who did this for over 30 years also said only about 5 percent of the people he sales to ever gets to own the home)

So I guess I don't think you will see much luck in courts if they take you there. ( most people who sell on contracts have done this many times and know what they have to do)