Get On With Your Life

Fighters

In America, we are fighters.  Through history we have seen our country rise up in time of crisis, go after the enemy when we are threatened or attacked.  We aren’t a bunch of lazy people that let our dreams and our hopes sit on the side lines and never be realized.  But bad things happen to good hard working people.  This is why I am writing this post.

We walked away from oppression.  We revolted for freedom and independence.

“There is no retreat but in submission and slavery!”  Patrick Henry

“Live within your means, never be in debt, and by husbanding your money you can always lay it out well. But when you get in debt you become a slave. Therefore I say to you never involve yourself in debt, and become no man’s surety. If your friend is in distress, aid him if you have the means to spare. If he fails to be able to return it, it is only so much lost.”
- Andrew Jackson

Debt is a form of slavery.

“…I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies….” Thomas Jefferson

Contracts

If you own a home or did in the past, you may painfully remember signing a huge stack of papers when you made your purchase.  Over the years, the size or amount of loan paperwork has grown immensely.  Most people don’t sit there and read it all… I mean who has that kind of time on their hands?  It probably took an hour to sign everything without reading it.  I recall as a Notary many years ago sitting with a man who was reading his deed of trust and crossing out all kinds of things like;

Trustor shall not cause or permit the Property to be used as a site for the use, generation, manufacture, storage, treatment, release, discharge, disposal, transportation or presence of any oil or other petroleum products…

He said in all seriousness…

“I’m not signing this, I won’t be able to park my car in the garage!  There’s gasoline and oil inside my car!”

I didn’t know what to say.  Nevertheless I think he ended up signing it, after thinking further about it.   My point is that we have (or had) faith in our banking system.  We believed that when we signed on the many pages of the loan contract that we were going to be able to pay it back.  I don’t think very many people out there intentionally signed knowing they weren’t going to be able to pay it.  I just don’t.

With that being said,  it is clear in the contract that in the event of non-payment, the lender can and will initiate foreclosure proceedings.

Here is an excerpt from a California Deed of Trust:

If Lender invokes the power of sale, Lender shall execute or cause Trustee to execute a written notice of the occurrence of an event of default and of Lender’s election to cause the Property to be sold….. After the time required by Applicable Law, Trustee, without demand on Borrower, shall sell the Property at public auction to the highest bidder at the time and place and under the terms designated in the notice of sale in one or more parcels and in any order Trustee determines.

THE LENDERS TOOK THE RISK.  They charged an interest rate.  They agreed to lend hundreds of thousands of dollars to someone with ZERO money down and NO income.  The insanity of this is what has put us in the crisis we are in.  Banks and lenders didn’t make this mistake only one time like a hopeful hard working husband and wife wanting the american dream of a home ownership, they did it over and over and over and so on and so forth.  By doing so, they created a huge demand for housing which caused our economy to boom.  What do our lawmakers do to the banks for punishment?  Bail them out. So in essence, they really didn’t have much risk after all.  When they can’t pay their creditors, the government gives them billions of dollars… they get to keep their Maseratis, private jets and spa retreats on tax payers money.  I am shocked there aren’t more protests.  We are too busy working trying to pay our debt to have time to protest.

Love / Hate

The idea of walking away from a bad mortgage or underwater home, has many people heated up.  There’s never someone in a blog or commenting on an article that says.  ho hum… that’s life.  It’s either “These walkers are deadbeats and should never be able to own a home again” or  ”I am trying to decide between paying my kids college payment or my mortgage!”  Why is it so hard for some people to accept that not all walkers are irresponsible.

Conclusion

In a recent seminar YouWalkAway had, I witnessed a man saying that in order to keep paying his mortgage and to do the right thing, he had started eating Top Ramen for lunch and dinner.  He sold his car and was taking the bus to work.  He said he still was using savings to offset his deficit, so it was just a matter of time before he wouldn’t be able to make the existing payment.  As I admire his will and determination to pay his mortgage payment,  I wanted to shout out “Get on with your life!”   It’s hard to let go.  It’s like throwing lawn chairs off the titanic.  If you made a mistake, why keep compounding it by making more.  Banks are walking away.  If there’s no other options, don’t go down with the ship.  Get on with your life… You Walk Away.