Accepted Answer

Good afternoon XXXXXXXXXXX and welcome to Just Answer.

I am very sorry to hear about everything you are going through and unfortunately similar stories to yours are way too common right now. It sounds to me that when you bought your brand new home n 2003 your property taxes were probably not adjusted yet to their full amount. This is very common and happens all the time. Property taxes are always paid for the previous year. When you bought a new home, the taxes were still being assessed on the land only and not the land and the home value. Therefore, generally when you buy a new home it will take a year or two for the property taxes to be adjusted upwards properly. This can cause a huge payment shock for most. The other problem with this is that you only have so much money being taken out for escrows for taxes and insurance and when your bank is notified by the county auditor of your new tax amount, you are already short and then you not only need to catch up the shortage but also face the increase in your escrow account for your taxes and insurance as well. This can often be the source of a massive increase in payment which many consumers do not consider when buying a new home. Homeowners insurance also generally increases as well which can cause an increase in payments and any passes in local levies and such in your community can increase tax payments too. The increases in your taxes and insurance alone could be the difference for your payment increasing so much. However, if you had an adjustable rate mortgage this could also have significantly increased your monthly payment on top of the increases in taxes and/or insurance. This is a common problem for many people who may have stretched themselves a little too thin buying a new home, who have had incomes which have declined over the past few years, and/or have lost their jobs. As for the the cancelling of your insurance, I am sure it was included in your escrow account. However, when you did not make a payment for a year, there was no money left over in your escrow account to pay your homeowers insurance and thus the insurance company has no other option but to cancel your insurance as they are no longer being paid for it. Finally, the bank does have some right to still contact you to try and help with working something out with you. However, if you have filed for bankruptcy and included the home into the bankruptcy then you need to inform Huntington Bank to please take all further communications to your attorney. There really is no grounds to sue Huntington Bank on right now unless there was predatory lending or some type of fraud involved with you obtaining your loan with SkyBank. Your best options at this point would seem to be to see if your loan is serviced by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac to see if you qualify for mortgage modification help at the following links: https://ww3.freddiemac.com/corporate/ and http://loanlookup.fanniemae.com/loanlookup/. If your loan is serviced by either you may be eligible for a loan modification under Obama's making Homes Affordable Plan. To find out if you are eligible for this plan click here and follow the on-screen directions: http://www.makinghomeaffordable.gov/eligibility.html. Next, if the first suggestion is not an option then you will need to look into speeding up your bankruptcy, look into selling your home via a short sale, or asking the bank to accept a deed in lieu of foreclosure. While I understand some of these option may not be favorable as time goes on your options are beginning to dwindle. Many of the modification programs take into account your income and whether even with a modification you would still be able to continue to make the new payments. Once again, I am sorry to hear about the troubles you are experiencing. Please let me know if I can be of any further assistance. Thank you for using Just Answer and please remember to leave feedback after you click the Green Accept button. Have a great week and best of luck to you with everything. Stay on top of everything, be persistent, and try to keep your cool when dealing with everyone even though this is an extremely stressful and frustrating event.

Expert:	Dave Z
Pos. Feedback:	100.0 %
Accepts:
Answered:	10/29/2009

Mortgage Co. Operati&ons Manager

Operations manager for a mortgage company, Member of OAMB & NAMB, 10+ yrs experience in mtg industry