After foreclosure can the 2nd mortgage holder come after me for the balance in Colorado?

Question

I had a property go to foreclosure in Colorado with 1st and 2nd mortgages. The 2nd is now trying to settle and has been calling and mailing me for the past 8 months. Can they collect? Should I settle or should I just pay an attorney to make them go away. They are out almost $80k and I didn't file bankruptcy.

Answer 1

These are all the mortgage walkaway trustee sale states, meaning they are non-judicial foreclosure states.

In those states, generally, when they foreclose on you, they cannot pursue you for their financial losses.

Many, such as California, do in theory allow a lender to choose judicial foreclosure but in those cases the lenders only do so if a borrower has significant other assets. This is the "one action" rule that lets the lender either pursue non-judicial foreclosure, at lower cost and less time, or judicial foreclosure that costs more money and takes more time but lets them go after you for their financial losses.

Alaska

Arizona

Arkansas

California

Colorado

District of Columbia (Washington DC)

Georgia

Hawaii

Idaho

Mississippi

Missouri

Montana (as long as non-judicial foreclosure is used)

Nevada - note that the lender CAN get a deficiency judgment (See below)

New Hampshire

Oregon

Tennessee

Texas (but even in a non-judicial foreclosure, the lender can pursue a deficiency judgment)

Virginia

Washington

West Virginia

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From what I understand if a trustee sale already took place legally the 2nd lender cannot exercise it's right to recourse. The only way they can have recourse action against you is if they had a judicial foreclosure that went through the court system.

The lender will try to bully you and make you think that they can come after you to squeeze what ever money out of you they can. The only way they can come after your assets is if they have a court hearing and obtain a judgement against you. Even if this were to happen you could claim bankruptcy and have it cleared.

There is a lot of information available about this on the internet. I recommend you do as much research as you can before contacting an attorney. Attorney's are very expensive and may not be necessary in your case.

The first step you should take is finding out if your property went through a judicial or non- judicial foreclosure. If it was non - judicial the 2nd lender has no legal grounds to come after you and they are just trying to scare you into giving them money.

Good Luck!

Answer 2

Try using: http://DebtAnswersNow.com

I used their service a couple months back and they consolidated all my debt and lowered my total debt 40%.

Answer 3

Marie b is right. There is lots of info on this online. In most cases they will just try to scare you into giving them whatever they can get out of you. If you are still on the fence, it never hurts to spend a little bit on legal advise and make 100% sure that you wont be on the hook for that 80k.

Still need to talk about it? Check out this forum its pretty new but looking for people justlike you.

http://forum.foreclosurelight.com