Thursday, March 31, 2011

Miracles

I don't have an exciting picture to go with this post so forgive me. But I still feel like I need to catch up on what happened with my Bountiful home. In my last posting, I wrote about coming to terms with foreclosing and being okay with the ramifications of that decision. Then in February, we got an offer for 290k which was far above anything we had hoped for. We felt like it was a great offer, only 17k less than what we owed. But with realtor's fees and closing costs, we would still be 30k in the hole. I went ahead and signed the papers accepting the offer, but didn't know if we could really go through with it. Marty and I decided at first to accept the offer and make payments to the bank for the difference, wanting to do the right thing. But there was still a rock in my stomach because after doing the math, it could take us up to 25 years to pay that debt off with what we could afford and we wouldn't even be owning the thing we were paying off! Plus, that money could be put towards Bowen's mission and college fund. Then after I talked to my brother, Devon, about it he really made me feel like I shouldn't pay it. I asked him if he would please call my bank (Weber State Credit Union) and try to negotiate something with them. He deals with banks for a living and understands the laws and how banks operate much better than the average person - including our realtor. He agreed to do that and finally got in touch with someone there who could actually make decisions, the VP of loan services. He discussed my case with him at length and over several days. Apparently, since credit unions are non profit, they are required to sue me for the deficiency on the loan. I had considered bankruptcy, but only if forced into it. Them suing me would do that. But statistically, they know that the odds of recovering any money in these kinds of situations are next to zero. So Devon talked numbers with him and convinced him that their best option was to settle with me now instead of paying filing fees and lawyers to chase me down for years knowing I'm not going to be able to pay them anything. In the end, they agreed to take $5,500 and consider the loan paid and clean up my credit where they could since I had stopped making my payment in December. We agreed on the settlement the day before I was supposed to close on the house, which was March 10th. Ironically, Marty signed closing documents for our lot and construction loan in St. George on March 9th. It was a busy week. While I was signing closing documents on the 10th, he was traveling up to Bountiful to move the rest of our stuff out. The buyer's were literally moving in on top of him on the 11th, but Marty said they were nice about it and even helped him and Travis (Marty's brother). My dad helped out as well. I had to work so was unable to make the trip. It was a wild weekend but it was so amazing to have it all happen at the same time. For me, this was an absolute blessing because now we didn't have to worry about me filing for bankruptcy or being haunted by this for years down the road. Devon saved us a lot of headache, anxiety and money by working with my bank and I'm very grateful to him for his work.

This experience has been a true miracle in my life. My testimony has been strengthened as I was reminded of how aware God is of my concerns and fears. He knows what outcome is best if I just have faith in Him and remember that always.