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Sorry, this is a little long, but I wanted to try to get as much info as I know for some advice/help. In 2005, a family member purchased a home, then in 2010 she almost foreclosed on it, but was able to get a loan modification after working with the bank for a year on it. During that year, she didn't pay her 1st mortgage or her 2nd mortgage. Since the 1st mortgage was modified, she was able to keep her home. The 2nd mortgage was with HSBC, and they charged it off. That 2nd morgage was around 55k. Then in 2013, she moved out of state, and rented out her property in FL. She has had tenants in her home for the last 7 years. She wants to sell this home because she's really not making any money from the rental. And this is where we learned (the hard way) about how that 2nd mortgage really came back to haunt her. The title company found that there was a 2nd mortgage, and after some digging, after the charge off, it was sold to DiTech Financial, so they hold a lien to the house. They want 55k to release the lien, and well if we sold the house, then she would be under if she had to payoff the 2nd mortgage too. After all the fees for the real estate agent, closing, etc. and it means she'd end up paying to sell her house. She really needs to offload it because she can't manage the rental any longer and pay for repairs. Well when we tried to call DiTech, we got the run around and can never get someone to call us back. We want to try to settle, but we just found out that they are going through a bankruptcy! Does anyone have any advice about our best options here? Would DiTech settle a portion of the balance to release the lien, but honestly, would they have any incentive to knowing that we are trying to sell the house? Since the account is charged off, and it's been 10 years, then the debt essentially is not owed, but DiTech still owns the lien. Should we try to get an attorney to help? Would an attorney have a better chance of getting the lien removed? The security instrument states something to the effect of: "Borrower is indebted to lender... and providing for monthly installments of principal and interest, with the balance of the indebtedness if not sooner paid due and payable on October 1, 2020" So after that date of October 1, 2020, even without a recorded satisfaction, shouldn't the title agency consider the lien expired? When I contacted the title agency, they said that they don't consider it expired until 8-10 years after the maturity date! Does that sound right? I guess she just assumed that since the chargeoff/lien was put on the property in 2010, that it would be expired by now and she wouldn't owe that money. Anyway, I'm asking because I wanted to see if we had any negotiation power when we try to call DiTech again to settle so that she can sell the house! Since they are in the middle of filing for Ch. 13 bankruptcy, I don't know how willing they would be to negotiate with us, and even if they still own the debt. Maybe they sold it, but she has never gotten a letter about it if so. Honestly any advice, or sharing of similar experiences would be appreciated. This is a close family member, and I need to try to help her.

Following a Chapter 7 Bankruptcy, Select Loan Servicing added $40k unpaid interest to what they said we owe on a 2nd mortgage. We did not sign a reaffirmation agreement for the 2nd mortgage like we did for the first. The gap is that the 2nd mortgagee cannot come after us personally, they can only come after the property, and the first mortgage has first position. What negotiating tool do we have for pressuring 2nd to reduce the balance due to something manageable? We can wrap the 2nd mortgage into a re-fi and at $39k or less, it's worth it to do that. But at $79k in loan and interest, its not worth it. And yes, we want to stay in the home. Again, any ideas on how to negotiate with servicer for 2nd now? Thanks

Hello everyone, first post so forgive me if I am in the wrong spot. Recently I was picking up my paycheck from work and noticed a significant cut in my amount, for a garnishment. I didn't even know what a garnishment was and I went back into the office and asked the front desk lady about what this garnishment deduction was for.. She looked at me and said "oh you have a garnishment, here is your paperwork for it". Apparently I owe 13,000 from Oregon food stamps. Ive never been on food stamps before, I'm 24 now and living at home currently. So I called up the help info phone number and asked them what this was about, and she says that it was an upaid debt from overpaid food stamps from my parents and anyone that is 18+ years of age living in the household is equally as liable for paying the debt off. It was accumulated from the years 2010 to 2014 and it was from my income being combined with my parents. Being the fact that I have never had them pay for anything since I got a job when I was 19, can I get off of this lien? Is this what they call a mis-lien? Right now my paychecks once a week are being taken out until the amount is paid in full. I feel like this is totally unfair and my parents feel awful for it because I'm now involved. They don't make any money hardly to pay this off as fast as they want it. And for me, buying a house which was my goal to accomplish this year is now out of the question until its all paid off. What can I do?

- Hello, I'm new to this forum but I'm very impressed how helpful everyone is. I'm hoping I can get some advice from some of the experts here. As a real estate agent, I ran into trouble in 2008-2009 and had to give up paying on some credit cards to take care of other family needs. One of those credit cards, a Disover Card, got a summary judgment against me on 7/6/11 for the principal of $9165.78 as well as the filing fee of $230, the service of process for $79.50, the ex-parte of $30 and the attorney's fee of $500 for a total of $10,005.28 and interest accrueing at 12% per annum. They were represented by Krista L. White and Associates in Snohomish County, WA. Though I was served papers, I was ignorant to the process and didn't attend the hearing. In 2010, they totally cleaned out our main bank account of nearly $1000 which I believe is illegal. I don't think they can take everything out of your bank account. Then, last year they tried to garnish my wages, which they did for a month, before my employer figured out the can't garnish wages for independant contractors. Now, they've put a judgment lien on a rental property that I own and would like to refinance. The lender won't refinance the property with the lien on it. I would also like to buy a home in the next couple years, and I don't think I'll be able to with the judgment. A couple months ago, I received a letter from Suttell, Hammer, & White in Bellevue, WA saying that Discover Bank has now retained their firm to collect the debt owed. So, is Discover Card still involved or do the attorneys now call all the shots? My question is, would Suttell, Hammer, and White ever consider a settlement offer in a case like this or will they always hold out for the full amount? I also have MCM coming after me for a $22,500 Juniper credit card debt where they're offering me 70% off if I pay that amount right away. Just from reading the forums, I don't think I'll go for that at this point. Thank you in advance.

Has anyone dealt with and had success with vacating a NY tax warrant? The story is as follows - I worked two jobs for a few years. This year, apparently the IRS modified one of my W2s from 2008 which then changed what my state return should have been. I received a bill from NY Tax and Finance sometime in the middle of last year (around June). I moved a few weeks later and kind of forgot about it. So, in around November I received another bill and went through my tax info to try to figure it out why (the bill said nothing about why I owed the money). A couple weeks later I checked my credit karma score (I do every morning) and was shocked to see it drop about 40 points because of the addition of a public record (tax warrant). So I immediately went online and paid the bill. I called and they explained why I had owed the bill. Now, mind you, this was a $298 bill from something that occurred this year in relation to a change made on my 2008 return. The guy that I talked to at the collections office of NY T&F told me that I could write a letter to the Tax and Finance Correspondence Office to "plead my case" to ask to have it vacated. He said in 30 - 60 days I would receive a letter of satisfaction but that I could send the letter to Correspondence now if I wanted. I wrote them a letter basically outlining how it was a very innocent mistake, for a small amount of money, from a change I did not understand that I paid immediately. Saying how I've been working on my credit, want to buy a house soon and this is going to really ruin my chances. Asking them out of the kindness of their hearts to help me, etc. I sent it a few weeks ago and haven't heard anything yet. I know things work slowly with state bureaucracies but I am really freaked out by this. Has anybody had any experience with this? Any idea what I should do? I really appreciate any assistance at all because I have been working so hard to clean up all of the negatives on my CR, have been very responsible the past few years and this is really just a huge setback for me. Side note, I have heard that it is almost as bad to have a paid lien as it is to have it sit unpaid (like a paid collection). Also, does having the warrant vacated actually remove it permanently from my record so that it doesn't show up on my credit?

I am really confused about this topic. There was a tax warrant placed on me for less than $300 for something that I was unaware was happening. It was an innocent mistake. I paid it immediately and sent a letter to the NY tax correspondence department. I then followed up today (3 weeks after I sent the letter) and asked if there was somebody I could talk to in order to have the warrant vacated. First he told me they only did that if the warrant was placed in error or if I paid it before it was placed. I paid it about 3 days after and was unaware it was being placed it was for around $300. So anyways, I ask "so this $300 bill that I was unaware of is going to screw me for like seven years now?" The guy tells me that having a warrant vacated does not remove it from credit and that it is the same thing as a satisfied warrant. He said "from experience in the banking industry once it is satisfied it doesn't negatively affect your credit. So it won't screw your credit if it is paid." This really runs counter to everything that I have read. A) Does having a warrant vacated remove it from your credit history? Is having it vacated the same as satisfied as far as credit is concerned? C) Does having a paid/satisfied warrant not affect your credit? D) Is there anything I can do about this?