Advising You on All Your Choices Before You Try a Short Sale
If your mortgage balance is higher than the value of your home (underwater), you may be asked by the bank to try a short sale, when you try to sell your house for less than you owe. Before you jump into the short sale process, you should know the risks and understand the alternatives, because you do not want to be left owing a balance on your mortgage.
At Gingold & Gingold LLC, we can offer accurate information about short sales and bankruptcy, and our Atlanta attorneys — Ira D. Gingold, who has been a bankruptcy lawyer and Court-appointed Bankruptcy Trustee since 1971, and Jamie L. Gingold, who has been practicing bankruptcy, real estate and business law since 2001 — can advise you on your options.
Understanding the Risks and Disadvantages of the Short Sale Process
The idea of a short sale may sound good, but the reality is very different. All too often, short sales are dangled in front of homeowners as a way to get them to keep making payments to the mortgage company. An average short sale process involves:
- Months of waiting before your lender will agree to let you try a short sale
- Months of waiting before someone comes along and makes an offer on the house
- Months of waiting before your lender will approve the contract with the buyer
- Months of waiting before your buyer can get financing for the purchase
If things fall through at any of these steps (which they often do), you are further behind on your mortgage payments and closer to a foreclosure. Additionally, many people have two mortgages on their homes, which further complicates the process.
Even if you succeed at selling your house in a short sale, the fine print may say that you still have to pay the difference between the sale price and what you owed on the mortgage.
Georgia Attorneys · Bankruptcy and Short Sales · Free Consultation
If you are preparing to leave your house and do not want to be foreclosed and evicted, bankruptcy is the right choice for you. If you cannot afford to keep your house, the bankruptcy law keeps you from owing any leftover balance to your mortgage lender.
To learn more about your bankruptcy alternatives, contact us at 404-963-9508 (toll free at 877-419-0450) or by e-mail to schedule a free consultation. We have offices in Atlanta, Cumming, Dallas, Douglasville and Gainesville, and evening and weekend appointments are available.
