Monday
Apr282008
Tenants in Foreclosure - Part 3 (Final)
Monday, April 28, 2008 at 08:50PM
Continued from Tenants in Foreclosure - Part 1 and Part 2:
Suddenly, we were essentially homeless squatters in a condo we had been paying rent on for almost two years...
On March 19th, we received notice from Fannie Mae (dated March 17th), indicating we were to vacate our leased condo immediately, no later than March 18th. This was the first official notice we received that the owner of our condo had not been paying the mortgage. The condo sold back to the bank at foreclosure on March 4th.
Thursday, March 20th began the most intensive, creative, exhaustive and desperate search I can imagine by Tenants in Foreclosure to find a soft place to land: We drove the streets, we called everybody we knew with any real estate connections, we considered anything and everything. By Sunday afternoon -- still nothing.
We had kind of a Plan B, worst-case scenario: The manager of our condo building (not our property manager) had an owner of another (smaller) unit For Sale, who was willing to let us move in temporarily, with three kids, the dog and all our stuff, until we could find something, which was a very kind and generous offer. Those men, both the manager and the owner of the other condo, will be blessed with good karma, I'm sure, for their willingness to help. Still, it was a less than ideal option, for lots of reasons.
Discouraged.
In times of stress, I tend to become very new-agey and spiritual as a way to cope. (That, and Xanax, and I usually break out in Shingles, too.) Thank god I had stumbled upon The Jack Rabbit Factor/Hidden Treasures and Oprah's worldwide webcast book study with Eckhart Tolle, author of A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose. While I desperately journaled and scripted and breathed to clear my chattering, overactive, freaking-out mind to find peace in The Power of Now (Eckhart Tolle), my husband searched the Internet high and low, forwards and backwards, as only a truly amazing, wonderful computer-geek can...and he came up with something new, late in the afternoon on Sunday: A 3-bedroom, 3-bathroom "mid-century contemporary" house right in the neighborhood, in the school zone, in our price range (just a little over the upper limit)...with a pool?!?!
Long story short, by a miracle of God, desperate faith, the Internet and the Universe, literally at the Midnight Hour -- it was The Perfect House. I still can't believe it and I'm sitting here in it, telling you this tale just one month later.
Hubby found it listed For Sale/For Lease on a random website Sunday PM;
I called Monday AM;
We were in the house Monday at lunch
(hubby's birthday, by the way);
Verbal agreement Monday PM;
Signed the lease Tuesday AM;
Began The Move 6 days later, on April 1st.
(It took a full week to move less than three miles.)
We were desperately (there's that word again, sorry!) afraid this was all too good to be true, but I did believe, and so far it has proved to be true: When the time comes, the Perfect House will appear. (So far, so good.)
But back on March 25th, the day we signed the lease and paid the new deposit with money we didn't have, our Tenants in Foreclosure nightmare was not yet over:
On March 25th, we came home to a "Tack and Mail" notice on our door, a SUMMONS to appear in court on/before April 1st or a Writ of Possession could be issued "instanter," which we took to mean the Sheriff could be at our door to evict us on April 2nd. I couldn't schedule the moving truck before Friday, April 5th because we still had to box and pack everything up.
Ugh. The nightmare continued--
I contacted the attorney listed on this new notice, verified the April 13th deadline. Apparently, this is just a part of the legal process to eviction. No action required on our part.
On March 27th, we received another notice on our door:
"[company] has been requested to determine the occupancy status and condition of the property.
You may be eligible to receive cash assistance for relocation expenses.
All occupants should immediately contact [company] to discuss the status of your occupancy and to report any hazardous conditions affecting the property.
CONTACT [company] IMMEDIATELY FOR FURTHER DETAILS..."
I contacted this new party and, lo and behold, they offered us "Cash for Keys" ($500) to vacate (surrender) the condo in good condition, "broom-swept."
Well...we already had the moving truck scheduled; $500 would cover less than half of our "relocation expenses"; and we had not heard a word from our landlord/property manager, although we had been keeping them informed every step of the way...okay.
In the end, after a nightmarish three-day move from condo to house, we went back and "broom-swept" the condo; we did not take anything that did not belong to us (i.e. washer/dryer, appliances, fixtures), not that we would have, anyway; and we met with the [company] guy to surrender the property.
Our horrible Tenants in Foreclosure nightmare was over.
Well, not quite yet, as far as the several thousand dollars we have on deposit with the property manager, which by Georgia Law, should be safely in an escrow account. We're about to move on to another Georgia Law which provides:
Under Georgia law (O.C.G.A. 44-7-35), a landlord who owns more than ten (10) units or uses a third party to manage the units can be liable for three times the amount of the improperly withheld deposit plus attorney fees.
Ick. We're really hoping it doesn't come to that.
Suddenly, we were essentially homeless squatters in a condo we had been paying rent on for almost two years...
On March 19th, we received notice from Fannie Mae (dated March 17th), indicating we were to vacate our leased condo immediately, no later than March 18th. This was the first official notice we received that the owner of our condo had not been paying the mortgage. The condo sold back to the bank at foreclosure on March 4th.
Thursday, March 20th began the most intensive, creative, exhaustive and desperate search I can imagine by Tenants in Foreclosure to find a soft place to land: We drove the streets, we called everybody we knew with any real estate connections, we considered anything and everything. By Sunday afternoon -- still nothing.
We had kind of a Plan B, worst-case scenario: The manager of our condo building (not our property manager) had an owner of another (smaller) unit For Sale, who was willing to let us move in temporarily, with three kids, the dog and all our stuff, until we could find something, which was a very kind and generous offer. Those men, both the manager and the owner of the other condo, will be blessed with good karma, I'm sure, for their willingness to help. Still, it was a less than ideal option, for lots of reasons.
Discouraged.
In times of stress, I tend to become very new-agey and spiritual as a way to cope. (That, and Xanax, and I usually break out in Shingles, too.) Thank god I had stumbled upon The Jack Rabbit Factor/Hidden Treasures and Oprah's worldwide webcast book study with Eckhart Tolle, author of A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose. While I desperately journaled and scripted and breathed to clear my chattering, overactive, freaking-out mind to find peace in The Power of Now (Eckhart Tolle), my husband searched the Internet high and low, forwards and backwards, as only a truly amazing, wonderful computer-geek can...and he came up with something new, late in the afternoon on Sunday: A 3-bedroom, 3-bathroom "mid-century contemporary" house right in the neighborhood, in the school zone, in our price range (just a little over the upper limit)...with a pool?!?!
Long story short, by a miracle of God, desperate faith, the Internet and the Universe, literally at the Midnight Hour -- it was The Perfect House. I still can't believe it and I'm sitting here in it, telling you this tale just one month later.
Hubby found it listed For Sale/For Lease on a random website Sunday PM;
I called Monday AM;
We were in the house Monday at lunch
(hubby's birthday, by the way);
Verbal agreement Monday PM;
Signed the lease Tuesday AM;
Began The Move 6 days later, on April 1st.
(It took a full week to move less than three miles.)
We were desperately (there's that word again, sorry!) afraid this was all too good to be true, but I did believe, and so far it has proved to be true: When the time comes, the Perfect House will appear. (So far, so good.)
But back on March 25th, the day we signed the lease and paid the new deposit with money we didn't have, our Tenants in Foreclosure nightmare was not yet over:
On March 25th, we came home to a "Tack and Mail" notice on our door, a SUMMONS to appear in court on/before April 1st or a Writ of Possession could be issued "instanter," which we took to mean the Sheriff could be at our door to evict us on April 2nd. I couldn't schedule the moving truck before Friday, April 5th because we still had to box and pack everything up.
Ugh. The nightmare continued--
I contacted the attorney listed on this new notice, verified the April 13th deadline. Apparently, this is just a part of the legal process to eviction. No action required on our part.
On March 27th, we received another notice on our door:
"[company] has been requested to determine the occupancy status and condition of the property.
You may be eligible to receive cash assistance for relocation expenses.
All occupants should immediately contact [company] to discuss the status of your occupancy and to report any hazardous conditions affecting the property.
CONTACT [company] IMMEDIATELY FOR FURTHER DETAILS..."
I contacted this new party and, lo and behold, they offered us "Cash for Keys" ($500) to vacate (surrender) the condo in good condition, "broom-swept."
Well...we already had the moving truck scheduled; $500 would cover less than half of our "relocation expenses"; and we had not heard a word from our landlord/property manager, although we had been keeping them informed every step of the way...okay.
In the end, after a nightmarish three-day move from condo to house, we went back and "broom-swept" the condo; we did not take anything that did not belong to us (i.e. washer/dryer, appliances, fixtures), not that we would have, anyway; and we met with the [company] guy to surrender the property.
Our horrible Tenants in Foreclosure nightmare was over.
Well, not quite yet, as far as the several thousand dollars we have on deposit with the property manager, which by Georgia Law, should be safely in an escrow account. We're about to move on to another Georgia Law which provides:
Under Georgia law (O.C.G.A. 44-7-35), a landlord who owns more than ten (10) units or uses a third party to manage the units can be liable for three times the amount of the improperly withheld deposit plus attorney fees.
Ick. We're really hoping it doesn't come to that.
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