In Joyful

Historically when a homeowner goes into foreclosure and the only resolution is the lender getting back a deed, this likely results in a deficiency between the amounts owed from the final judgment when the property is eventually sold. This “deficient” amount can be handled by the lender in two different ways. The lender can get a “deficiency judgment” from the court against the homeowner and try and collect this deficiency amount using common collection methods. These methods include attaching assets by court order, garnishment of his pay, working with a collection agency which attempts to get the homeowner to pay, and selling the steeply discounted judgment to someone who believes he can collect the funds within the next 5 or more years. Homeowners usually have not made mortgage payments for many months before the home buyers foreclosure eviction and have “saved” this money somewhere, and this “somewhere” can become a target for the collection agency. The collection agent may have to wait a few years but most often the homeowner is back on his feet in a few years and has money somewhere. This is when it is up to the collection agency to find it and get a court order to collect this money! In the last 8 ? 10 years lenders have not been getting deficiency judgments against homeowners most of the time because in most cases their attitude has been “we can?t get blood from a turnip” because of the homeowner?s financial condition. However, in December of 2007, President Bush signed into law a bill that essentially protects homeowners from having a deficiency judgment issued against them if it is from the foreclosure of their personal residence.