Adventures in Disorganization
by Zia ~ February 20th, 2007. Filed under: Exigencies, House.There is a house across the street in the throes of repossession. Again.
The background is worthy of a soap opera, and has been dribbled in by various neighborhoodly sources. Laurie and her first husband lived there. They had a kid. Then they got divorced. Laurie kept the house,married Kevin, transferring the property into his name (probably because she doesn’t work), and had another kid.
Kevin then got another woman pregnant so Laurie kicked him out. About this time, he tried to sell the house for an inordinate sum of money–unsuccessfully, I might add, though this may have been because: a) Laurie didn’t want to move and is so strident and shrill that she puts a fishwife to shame; and b) he insisted on doing a “for sale by owner,” which consisted of a few cheesy signs.
Our friendly sources–including Kevin himself–claim that Kevin then told Laurie he would pay the mortgage for a year, at which point she would have to move out. He and the girlfriend planned on moving in. (Call me crazy, but the last place I would want to live with a current paramour is where I lived with the previous one. But that’s just me.)
She didn’t move.
He threatened her with eviction notices.
She didn’t move.
Finally, he stopped paying the mortgage altogether. He had a buddy repossess the house.
And then he had his new girlfriend buy it.
Should I mention that at some point in this saga he also filed bankruptcy? Does that explain why the notice on their front door states that Kevin and the gf are now 6 months behind on the mortgage payment? I don’t know–but what I do know is that their house has a sweeping vista of Lake Washington and despite various remodels and additions, still has good Craftsman bungalow bones.
And I’m thinking about buying it.
So there I am, on the phone with my bank, walking through the credit application. It takes me awhile to dig out my 2005 tax return, freaking out the whole time. Then I start looking for my 2006 tax return. Where is it? AHHHHH!!!!! The guy tells me I can call back. We hang up.
At which point I realize that my 2006 tax return is NOT missing. It doesn’t exist yet.
February 20th, 2007 at 11:04 am
Oooh, good luck. Sounds like a mess. Your soap opera is almost as good as the saga behind our current house, before we bought it. Although, ours involved a divorced couple living on separate floors of the house with their respective love interests, a spurned girlfriend calling the housing inspector…
Obviously your neighbor’s not a brain surgeon if he didn’t file for a homestead exemption to keep his house out of the bankruptcy.
And, I have an amazing mortgage broker if you don’t want to go the bank route.
February 20th, 2007 at 3:05 pm
Well, who knows if it’s going to happen, but I don’t know, I think your story’s pretty darn good. At least there wasn’t rampant procreation (i.e., continuing the cycle) going on there.
I had to look at homestead exemptions (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homestead_exemption, if anyone else is similarly uninformed). Alas, I don’t think it applied to them. No one died, and also Kevin and the new GF were living somewhere else. They were trying to rent the place out for 1600 a month. Which is CRAZY given the house and the location.
February 21st, 2007 at 8:00 am
Hmm, I was under the impression (perhaps outdated) that someone filing for bankruptcy could exempt their primary residence from their assets, not just if someone had died. But (thankfully) I’m no attorney.
Another link:
http://www.wiseradvisor.com/university-article~artId~304~title~state-homestead-laws.asp
February 22nd, 2007 at 1:14 pm
[…] 2. If the house across the street is repossessed, it will be auctioned off. Cash only. The woman whose name was on the notice pinned to the door was harried and not just a little rude. On the other hand, I’m meeting with our realtor tomorrow and she’s doing a bit of research for me. Plus, I’m now officially qualified for a loan. […]