House Account: $352.41
* * * * * * * * * *
September
arrived but rental payments from Giselle and her upstairs friend did not.
Needless
to say, I wasn’t really surprised when two weeks later the #mortgage company's bank rejected Jerry
and Shirley’s application to buy the #house.
Apparently Jerry earned too little to take on another mortgage.
After
commiserating with Shirley about the bad news, I sought out Head Honcho for
some commiseration of my own.
“I
really don’t want to declare #bankruptcy,” I lamented in his office. “It seems
like such a drastic measure. But what am I to do? I just can’t take this
anymore!”
How
many times over the past five years had I uttered that last sentence?
“I
don’t have the energy or the money to keep taking people to Court,” I
continued plaintively. “It’s like every other minute
I’m sending threatening letters to my #tenants by certified mail, I’m up to my
ears in subpoenas, income executions, petitions, motions, warrants ... I'm paying
umpteen filing fees and service fees ... I’ve got no #rent coming in ... I’m down to my
last cent ... and it’s not like I haven’t tried to sell the house. I had it on the market for eighteen months, and no one wanted to buy it, except for my tenant and a neighbor, but the bank turned them both down. Don’t
they know how hard it is to sell a house in Schemmerhorn?”
“Whoa, kiddo, calm down,” soothed Head Honcho in his usually calm manner. “There's no need to declare bankruptcy. Just do a deed in lieu of #foreclosure.”
“What’s
that?” I gulped, blowing my nose and mopping at my running mascara.
“Give
the house back to the bank.”
“I
can do that?”
“Yes. Call the bank, tell them you want to
do a deed in lieu of foreclosure, they’ll
send you the paperwork, you fill it out, send it back ... and that’ll be that.”
“Hm.” I couldn’t really believe it was that
simple. “What will happen to my credit?”
“You might find it difficult getting a new credit card for a while, but foreclosure’s
not considered as bad as a bankruptcy. If
you wait seven years, your credit will be clear again.”
I
could live with that. It would be so worth
it not to have the aggravation all the time.
I determined to call the mortgage company that very day when I went home
for lunch.
And
it really was that simple. I couldn’t
believe it!
Attractive
Mortgages had sold my mortgage some time ago to a company called Southwest
Mortgage Company. Pleased that I didn't have to deal with Un-Attractive Mortgages, who'd pissed me off royally when I first bought the house, I called Southwest Mortgage Company and told them I could no
longer take the strain of being a #landlord and didn’t have enough money to continue
paying the mortgage.
"And," I declared to the gentleman who'd answered the phone, "since you've turned down every prospective buyer I’ve introduced to you, I am now forced to
either request a deed in lieu of foreclosure or commit myself to a mental
hospital!"
The man took my mild display of histrionics in stride, merely stating that he was sorry to hear about my situation and would send out the paperwork that very day.
And
that really was that!
Of
course, then I started wishing I’d done this earlier and not waited until my bank account was almost exhausted.
I always was a willing casualty of buyer’s remorse.
“Is
there anything I should be doing to the house?” I asked. “Like giving my tenants notice, painting and stuff?”
“We'd obviously appreciate it if the #premises was left in as good condition as possible,” the man answered rather formally. “And with no tenants in residence. But you don’t need to paint if you don’t want to.”
I drove back to my office in a euphoric mood, wondering if Head Honcho
would grant me permission to kiss his feet.
Speaking
of kissing, I still hadn't received September’s rent from Giselle, or her
nameless friend. And now that I had to give them notice, I could probably kiss
all past-due rents goodbye too.
I called
Giselle and told her I was giving the house back to the bank and that she would have
to move out. When I intimated, rather
forcefully, that the main reason I was in this predicament was because of all the
unpaid rents, she spun me some tale about the electric company mixing up her account ... Social Services ... etc., etc. I think her mother’s
death played a part in it somewhere as well.
“And now," Giselle added, "how’m I supposed to pay you, when I gotta pay a deposit on another apartment?”
She then proceeded to recite a litany of accusations:
"You don’t know what it's like living paycheck
to paycheck."
"You don't understand what it's like to be poor like me."
"You don't know how lucky you are to have a good payin' job, wit' savings in the bank. We got nutt'n."
All I could do was listen.
Eventually, Giselle ran out of steam and I managed to extract a promise
from her that she would go down to Social Services the next day to seek help with her overdue rent. I also
urged her to try and collect some rent from her upstairs friend.
On
September 25th, I followed up with a letter:
Dear
Giselle:
As
you know, the bank is making arrangements to #repossess the house. You are asked to vacate the premises by
October 31st. Please leave the apartment
in as neat and clean condition as you can. I am also giving your friend upstairs notice
to move out. You have still not sent me
September’s rent. Please do so
immediately. Also, by the time you get
this letter, it will be just about time for October’s rent too. As we discussed, please see your caseworker at #DSS about helping with the $1,100.00 you still owe
me for June and July plus two Augusts ago.
You can tell her you are being evicted and show her the enclosed
letters I have sent you about the overdue rents. I’m sorry it has come to this.
Yours truly,
Anastasia Scuttlebutt
A
form arrived from the mortgage company.
It consisted of one xeroxed sheet of paper and contained several typos:
the information requested below is very important each point is needed to consider you loan for a voluntary conveyance of the deed in lieu of a foreclosure suit. Consideration for a deed in lieu of foreclosure will be based on the fact that each point is answered below if any points are unanswered your request for a deed in lieu of foreclosure will be denied . . .
The
form went on to request the reason for the default and why it could not be
cured.
I
wrote: “Difficulty collecting rent from tenants, who either refuse to pay or pay late. Numerous lawsuits,
evictions and judgments.”
I
answered a few more questions about resources I'd exhausted in trying to
keep my loan current; tenants in residence, if any; monthly income and expenses; and
whether the property had ever been listed for sale. I gleefully appended Wally’s
listing agreement and notices of failed showing appointments, signed on the
dotted line labeled “Borrower,” and mailed the form back to the mortgage company.
Giselle soon found a place to live
and moved out in mid-October. I was
happy to give her a reference just to get rid of her. Apart from occasionally not paying rent, she had
been a reasonably good tenant. The upstairs friend, on the other hand -- whose name I never did discover -- very kindly performed a moonlight
flit, having paid not one cent in rent.
I cleaned the house as best I could, turned off the
utilities, contacted Greatest Pest Control to cancel the monthly
maintenance, and didn’t look back as Wim and I cheerfully drove away from 51 Manson Street for what we thought was the last time.
A
week later, the weather turned very cold, and I began to worry about freezing
pipes. I was also visualizing the last
line of the xeroxed form from the mortgage company, which stated: “The
property must not be damaged in any way for Southwest Mortgage Company to
complete the Deed in Lieu of Foreclosure.”
After several phone calls to the utility
company, I managed to get the gas turned back on. The pilot lights could warm the apartments a
little until Wim had time to blow out the pipes.
I hung up the phone, thinking that this
was the end of my sorry tale.
Not
so.
To
the long list of evictions, vandalism, suspected drug trafficking,
prostitution, murder threats, and bug infestations, rape was about to be added
to the list.
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