Recently, I went to a birthday party at a Palatine bar not known for its fine beer selection. I looked across the place expecting to see Bud Light or some other run of the mill offering, but like a distant mirage I saw  the words “Bell’s Hopslam” engraved on a tap handle. This is a world class,  high abv beer and it’s not easy to find. My main emotions were surprise, joy, elation and concern that I would spend the next morning in an iron lung recovering from this happenstance.  Mainly, it was a nice surprise and it made for one fun evening.

Those in the middle of a strategic default or foreclosure may be in for a nice surprise too.  Relocation assistance payments (more commonly known as “cash for keys“) are becoming the norm and the payments are getting larger.

In a foreclosure, the lender is entitled to possession of the property after the sheriff’s sale is confirmed in court. But it  became common practice for the lender to pay the occupant between $1000 and $2000 for the keys to the property. This was done so that the property is delivered to the lender in good, clean condition. The lender would rather not physically evict the occupant because the property may be stripped or damaged by the owner.

Here is what is new in the cash for keys arena:

1. Payments higher. The last two cash for keys arrangements that I worked on were $7800 and $4000 respectively. These required possession in 30 days and a check was given when the keys were delivered. It seems like $3000-4000 is obtainable now, whereas $1000-$2000 used to be about the max payment.

2. Don’t expect an offer until after sheriff’s sale confirmation. Clients sometimes want me to ask for relocation assistance during the middle of a foreclosure. I tell them it’s not possible. The only time a lender will offer cash for keys is after the sheriff’s sale has finished AND the motion to confirm the sale in court has been heard and entered.

3. Real estate agent will leave calling card. I have had little to no luck calling the foreclosure attorney to initiate a cash for keys. They always say “call the lender” which is pretty much a fruitless exercise. Have your ever tried to just ring up B of A or Wells Fargo with no contact person? Not fun. Here is what I see most of the time:  After the confirmation of the sheriff’s sale, the REO real estate agent hired by the lender will put a card or flyer under your door with his or her phone number. They are very responsive when called because they want you out of there so they can sell the property and earn a commission.

4. Most checks are given when keys are delivered. I prefer that the agent give the owner a check at the appointment when the keys are delivered. Most of the time this is was happens. Sometimes the agent says that the check will be mailed. No one likes this. I try to speficy in the cash for keys agreement that the check will be delivered in exchange for the keys and will not be mailed afterward.

5. Can’t always get what you want. About 20-30% of the time the lender will not offer a cash for keys. Often, the REO real estate agent initially will say that no relocation assistance is offered and then will come back a week or two later and offer it. So hang in there and wait a few weeks.

6. House has to be occupied. It is best to leave curtains up at the property and some personal property there. If the house/condo is clearly and obviously vacant, the REO real estate agent may just re-key the property and you will not get a cash for keys payment. I have had 2 instances in the last year when REO agents trotted into occupied properties and changed the locks. They are not supposed to do this. In both cases, when I called them the locks were changed back and we later received cash for keys payments. If the property looks like an abandoned haunted mansion, don’t expect to get a cash for keys.

The Chicago Tribune reported that the average time for a foreclosure in Cook County was 682 days. That’s about 22 months and it sure seems like a long, long time to me. Plus, that’s the average, so many cases took much longer.

I hate to be a contrarian, but lately my experience is that foreclosures are going faster, not slower.  My own purely unscientific guess is that 14 months is about the norm in most cases.

There are two factors that are at work in determining the length of a foreclosure:

1.) When the bank obtains the Judgment of Foreclosure.

2.) How fast a Sheriff’s Sale can be set up in your county.

I should back up a minute and say that I am only talking about uncontested foreclosures here, meaning that you or your attorney did not file an appearance in the case and you are not actively defending the foreclosure. If you file an appearance in the case, show up to plead your case and/or file contested motions, the case can stretch on for many moons. In Lake County, IL it takes about 8 months to get a hearing date for a contested motion. By the time the parties get to court, no one even remembers what the issue was.

Let’s take a look at the two factors that affect the length of a foreclosure:

1.) When the bank obtains the Judgment of Foreclosure.

The faster that the bank gets a “judgment of foreclosure,” the faster the case will move. The pic below shows a fast moving case. (As you can see, my dream is to be a graphic artist.)

Here the bank gets its judgment of foreclosure before the redemption period expires. The redemption period (the owner’s right to sell the property even though they are behind on payments) has to expire before the sheriff’s sale can be held and the owner officially loses the property.

This pic shows a slow moving case. It’s slow because the bank dinks around and waits until after the 7 month redemption period is over to get the judgment of foreclosure. Doing this extends the redemption period another 3 months and slows the case down. (The redemption period is 7 months from service of summons or 3 months from the entry of judgment of foreclosure, whichever is later.)

2.) What county you live in.

In Cook County, the sheriff’s sales are handled by many outside companies, not the sheriff, so the sales are scheduled within 30 days of the redemption period expiring. Like clockwork, your Cook County sheriff’s sale will follow within 30 days of the redemption period expiring, so it is by far the fastest county in that regard. This company seems to handle a large share of the Cook County cases.

Will, Lake and Kane Counties are slow because the sheriff handles the sales and they are still overrun with cases, so it can take 4-6 months to schedule the sheriff’s sale.

So most Cook County cases are on the express track these days, while the collar counties are by and large slower.

A client called to say that he just moved out of his home in foreclosure and, on the way out,  he took the following:  Stove, refrigerator, washer and dryer.  Not satisfied with taking just these items, he disconnected and hauled away the exterior air conditioning  and put that big whopper in a storage locker. He had moved all the way across the country, so he really had no use for any of this stuff and it struck me as kind of excessive. His lender thought so too.

The reason for the client’s call to me was that his lender had called demanding  the  a.c.  be returned and threatening to file an insurance claim on his homeowner’s policy if it wasn’t returned. I told him to return the a.c.

Increasingly, lenders  will file claims against an owner’s homeowner’s policy if a home in foreclosure is stripped of fixtures. The lender is an additional insured on the insurance policy and is entitled to payment.  Homeowners need to be careful about this because after the insurance company pays the claim, the insurance company will sue the homeowner for the money it paid out.

Generally, it’s okay to take appliances like washer, dryer, refrigerator or stove. When I arrange “cash for keys” agreements for clients at the end of foreclosures, the lender will usually allow the owner to take these appliances along. But taking a furnace, a.c. unit or kitchen cabinets from a home in foreclosure is crossing the line and should not be done unless you want to be lit up with a lawsuit later.

I sure hope the Mortgage Debt Forgiveness Act (MDFA) is extended soon, so clients can relax their collective minds. It expires in 4 months.  I thought it would have been extended by now.

The MDFA says that if a homeowner is foreclosed upon or short sells his or her primary residence then no tax is due on the 1099 issued afterward.   For foreclosures, the mortgage amount minus the market value of the property is taxable to the owner under the 1099. For short sales, it’s the total mortgage amount minus the amount repaid in the short sale that’s taxable.

The graphic above from the Chicago Tribune shows that the AVERAGE foreclosure case in Cook County taxes 682 days. So, If you started a strategic default one year ago you have almost one more left to go. Meanwhile, the law is about the change and leave you hanging with one foot over a cliff. A big 1099 will be dropped in your lap at the end of the short sale or foreclosure and that will send many over the financial edge.

Short sales will no longer be an attractive option if the MDFA  expires. It’s great to get a release of deficiency in a short sale, but if a lender is shorted $100,000 after a short sale (not unusual) the owner faces a $25,000 tax bill (at an estimated 25% tax rate). That’s rough. Unless a client can claim insolvency and thereby knock out a 1099, a short sale will make no sense in many cases.

One strategy that will become very popular if the MDFA expires is the surrender of a property in a chapter 13 bankruptcy. This is not a new method of avoiding tax on the 1099, but it will take on new importance if the MDFA expires.

If we lose the MDFA, there will be three ways to avoid tax on the 1099:

Surrender house  in a chapter 13. The law allows a homeowner to file a chapter 13 bankruptcy and surrender the underwater house. This means the owner stops making payments on the house and it returns to the lender in a foreclosure.  It doesn’t matter what assets or income the owner has (there are limits on the size of the mortgage).  The owner does not have to pass the means test required in a chapter 7. The owner stops making payments, files the chapter 13 and stays in the home until the end of the foreclosure. The 1099 is wiped out by the chapter 13 and the owner is released from any deficiency judgment. The owner makes a few payments to the bankruptcy trustee for attorney’s fees and other costs and then is discharged from all liability including the 1099. Sweet, right? The negatives: attorney’s fees are about $3500.00 and the owner’s credit is damaged.  If the client has a second mortgage, there is a chance that the second mortgage company might file a claim that the mortgage is unsecured, but that usually does not happen. Very few clients other than real estate investors needed to use this .  That’s because in Illinois, there are few to no deficiency judgments on first mortgage foreclosures and the 1099s after a foreclosure were blocked by the MDFA, so there was no need to file a chapter 13 for the vast majority of primary residence foreclosures. I look for this to become a much-used strategy if the MDFA goes away.

Insolvency. A 1099 after a foreclosure is wiped out if the homeowner is insolvent, meaning that the sum of all debts is greater than the owner’s assets. I find that many clients do qualify as insolvent, which would mean they would not need to file a chapter 13. This is a simple remedy, but it’s all or nothing. You either are or are not insolvent.
Chapter 7. Filing a chapter 7 bankruptcy will knock out the 1099, but homeowners have to pass the means test which requires a relatively low income. Also, there are asset limits that have to be met. Generally, we use chapter 7s only when the owner passes these tests and has a large second mortgage or only a first mortgage and high credit card debt.

Of these three solutions, the chapter 13 surrender will be only  remedy that works for many clients and should at least be considered when constructing a strategy for an underwater property.