[JenRuK]

We are currently living in a singlewide mobile home that is in my Grandfathers name (who has been deceased since 1998) and we've been making payments on it since 2000. However, we are buying a house soon and want to know what would happen if we tried to give it back to the bank. It's not in our name at all, we've just been making the payments to his loan. We have a letter saying that when it is paid off it can be changed over to us, but we still owe $14500 on it and frankly I don't think it's worth that much and I don't even think I want to try and sell it. I don't even know if we could sell it since it isn't ours.

Would anything happen to us if we gave it back?

[excon]

Would anything happen to us if we gave it back?

Hello Jen:

My first thought was that no, since you don't have an agreement, there is nothing they can do to you.

However, there is some unfinished business that when finished, MIGHT cause me to change my opinion.

When your grandfather died, his estate should have been probated. Had that occurred, the bank would have been informed of his death, and would have put a lien on the trailer. You certainly could have inherited it, but you would have had to find your own financing to take care of the lien.

That didn't happen. I don't know who didn't do what they were supposed to do, and I don't know what the bank will do about it. IF it was just oversight, then probably nothing will happen adversely. However, if you did this in order to perpetrate a fraud against the bank, then something will happen.

I don't know why his estate wasn't probated. If I knew the rest of the story, I could give you better advice.

excon

[George_1950]

It sounds like there is some unfinished business, somewhere. Perhaps some agreements or other expectations were made that you may not be able to walk away from. Was your grandfather married at the time of his death?

You wrote: "We have a letter saying that when it is paid off it can be changed over to us...." Who wrote this?

[JenRuK]

I don't know what happened with the estate. All I know is the loan was originally given to my Grandfather. He, in turn, let a cousin of mine live there and make the payments (since their credit sucked). When I got married, we wanted somewhere affordable to live, so my cousin let us take the trailer and take over the payments on it.

I honestly don't know hardly anything about that side of the family. My grandfather was married when he died and everything went to my grandmother. She passed away in 2002 and left everything to another cousin of mine. After that I have had nothing to do with any of them and have no idea what was and was not done. I know, it's stupid, but they are trash.
So now, we are stuck with this piece of junk and no idea what to do with it.

Thanks for all your help!

[JenRuK]

We wrote out the letter and the cousin who received everything with the estate signed it in front of a notary saying he would give the title to us when it was paid off.

[ScottGem]

Ok, so you were not named in your grandfather or grandmother's wills? Whoever was supposed to manage the estate (which might have been this cousin) should have taken care of how the property was distributed, but apparently did not.

Another question is whether this trailer is sitting on property owned by someone or in a trailer park? A final questions is whether you are making the payments directly to the lender and do you receive statements from them?

It is very possible you can turn this back over to the cousin and walk away.

[JenRuK]

The trailer is sitting on property belonging to my parents. We make payments to the lender from our checking account, and they send statements to our address like this...

My grandfathers name
c/o Our names
Our Address...
...

It would be really nice to just walk away from this mess.

[excon]

Hello again, Jen:

As long as you didn't try to cheat anybody, and I see that you didn't, I believe you can walk away free and clear.

excon

[ScottGem]

Ok, so there is no issue of paying rental. I think you can send a letter back to your cousin. Inform him that you have decided to get a home of your own and no longer desire the trailer. Give him a couple of months notice of when you will be moving out.