A short sale involves any real estate transaction in which the selling price is less than the combined amount required to pay off any mortgage loans encumbering the property as well as the costs of the overall transaction. A short sale will then occur if the seller is unable to make up this difference and involves several financial and legal risks. The services of an Arizona short sale attorney may thus be required, and you should look no further than our law firm for advice on how to properly execute a short sale. This will be crucial in enabling you to sell your home for less than you owe on your mortgage and avoid the risk of any foreclosure. The case in Arizona is however more complicated than that, and some former homeowners are finding that they’re still indebted to mortgage lenders even after they have successfully completed a short sale. This is commonly referred to as a short sale deficiency.
The Short Sale Process in Arizona
We can help you avoid these and many other issues which have become increasingly common in Arizona. This is because short sales, unlike traditional foreclosures, do not typically fall under the jurisdiction of the state’s anti-deficiency laws. Such laws offer protection from foreclosure to many distressed homeowners by barring lenders from getting any payments from defaulters if the homes selling price is less than the mortgage amount. Borrowers who complete a short sale may have the same protection extended to them by lenders in some cases. Before you proceed with a short sale, our experienced attorneys will help you understand what your options are if you ever default on your mortgage loan. There are several kinds of loans in Arizona that can be secured by real estate including home equity, purchasing, and refinancing loans. The lenders options, if you as a borrower default in making any pre-agreed payments will be determined by the type of loan, the outstanding amount, and the type of property.
Services offered by Our Arizona Short Sale Attorneys
Some of the remedial actions that the lender may resort to in such a situation are dependent on the defaulter’s financial ability, the cost the lender incurred in acquiring the loan, and any shared losses that may occur if the loan was made via a merger or purchase. Our attorneys are amongst the best placed in Arizona to provide you with legal advice concerning these matters. We can offer you ample advice on all your options and legal liabilities in a free short sale consultation. You can also get crucial tax advice from us and find out if you qualify for debt relief through the Mortgage Forgiveness Act. We will ably handle all your debt cancellation and tax information and relay it to the IRS on your behalf.
Some Cautionary Advice before you Short Sell in Arizona
It is often a customary requirement that the lender approving the short sale be supplied with all the relevant tax and income information concerning the borrower. Should the lender then be able to determine that the borrower grossly inflated their income when they obtained the loan, there may then be allegations of mortgage fraud on the borrowers part, which may leave them exposed to criminal liability accusations. This issue has garnered a lot of attention in Arizona recently, especially after the collapse of the real estate sector nationwide which has led to the substantial collapse of home prices. There is a multi-departmental task force consisting of the IRS, FBI, and several local police departments that has been established in Arizona to investigate and prosecute the rising number of cases involving mortgage fraud. This should be enough to convince you of the importance of having all your documentation carefully analyzed by one of our short sale attorneys to weigh any potential risks before you turn over such documentation to the lender you choose.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the most important thing that is at stake for you if you opt for a short sale is that the lender must agree to offer you relief from any payment deficiencies. An Arizona short sale attorney from our law firm will be able to assist you in obtaining and enforcing this requirement by ensuring that the language used in drafting the settlement agreement with the lender actually translates to this. In other words, our lawyers will ensure that the terms proposed by the lender actually convey the message that they are absolving you the borrower from any deficiency.