Foreclosure in the United States is not a new, hot button issue. Foreclosure is something that at least two million homeowners have fallen victim to over the course of the last seven or so years. Seven years ago was about the time in the U.S. when the real estate’s housing bubble burst and spiraled homeowners into thousands of dollars of debt. However, out of this crisis, a new monster has emerged and its name is the “zombie foreclosure.” Sounds like something out of a very non-threatening, no thrills horror movie, doesn’t it? Well for at least ten thousand homeowners, it’s their worst nightmare.
A normal foreclosure is when a house is in deep debt and an outside source, like a bank or other lender, tries to get that money back from the homeowner who has stopped making payments by selling the home at public auction. The house is sold at auction for the amount owed and then is subsequently paid by the new owner, in a way the debt is then dead. So this is where the zombies come in.
When these houses are put up for auction and no one buys them, it causes a problem. It creates what has slowly become known as a “zombie foreclosure.” An article in the money section of CNN.com describes what happens when a homeowner is forced to give up their home to a lender due to foreclosure but the house does not sell. “The most frustrating part is that I can’t move on,” said Rose Nathan,37, just one of the people interviewed in the article. She lost her home in 2009 after voluntarily giving up her home to CitiMortgage. Afterwards, she took her things and booked a one-way flight to Hawaii where she now resides. Two years later, after what could conceivably be considered radio silence, she received a bill from CitiMortgage – for $5,000.
I’m sorry…say that one more time?
Yes, she received a bill from the company she had given the deed of her home to two years prior. How you ask? Well, according to CitiMortgage there was a lien on the house that was holding up any sort of progress in selling the house. Nathan did some research and noticed that a lien was placed on the house well after she had sold her property to CitiMortgage.
All of Nathan’s credit scores plummeted because of it and despite it all she paid the bill and now lives in a one bedroom apartment with three kids.
Another terrifying story of this is the case of Mustapha Sesay, 45 with two kids, found himself in even worse conditions. In 2008 he lost his home to debt and foreclosure and two years later received a call from a debt collector informing him that he owed $70,000 in debt. All because when his house went into foreclosure, the lender of his second mortgage never recognized that his home was in foreclosure from his primary mortgage lender. So his mortgages continued to rack up debt; thus plummeting another victim into deeper and deeper debt.
Mustapha said that he had called lawyers and counselors and could not get himself any closer to a solution. “I could move to Alaska in winter and no one would lend me ice.”
This continuing issue has put more and more people into financial trouble and few have seen complete recovery from it. However if you are currently afflicted with a zombie foreclosure, there is help for you that doesn’t have to mean the death of all your money. It also doesn’t have to mean thousands of dollars spent on a credit consultant or a lawyer to get you out of this pickle. One quick and easy solution to all of it is a title loan. A title loan easily obtained for only the title of your car and allows the borrower to receive a large sum of money. Once you fill out the online application and finish the three easy steps, you will receive a quote and a call from one of our agents waiting to get you the money you need. You can get that money in as little as 24 hours and up to 42 months to repay your loan in a payment plan that works for you. So again, if you find yourself in a tough situation with no feasible way out, a title loan can always be your way out. So don’t get attacked by zombie foreclosures and know that a title loan could be your “zombie survival kit.”
