I recently received an email from someone in trouble:
"We are in financial straits right now. We have refinanced and gone through home retention and even looked into deed in lieu,short sales you name it. We have a townhouse and our mortgage increased to the point we couldn't afford anymore. Spoke to the mortgage company and decided on a short sale. This was May of 2008. It now February 2009 and we are still in a very bad situation. We owed past amounts from our homeowners association. We were told a lien wold be placed on our home and it was. WE had prior applied for deed in lieu.We were just informed recently it was denied because there was a lien. We tried desperately for the association to release the lien as we promised to make the common charges faithfully, which we are. I asked them since we have this agreement can the lien be released, the answer was no, not until all amounts are paid in full. The balance is alittle over $1000. For this small amount they will not release the lien giving us a chance to apply for deed in lieu.We are honest people and do not want to just walk away from our obligations, but no one seems to be on our side lately, and we don't know what to do anymore. My husbands hours have been decreased and i am permanently disabled receiving social security. Things are extremely stressful now, and we have a family to support we have 3 children.I was searching on the computer hoping to get some relief or advice or help and found this website and your message and decided to send an e-mail with hopes you may read it and possibly offer some kind of assistance for us. We are at the bottom of the barrel right now and have no where to turn. this stress has made us ill from it all. We have never done this sort of thing contact strangers but we don't have lots of choices right now."

I suggest in this situation, they should contact their lender and offer a compromise. I would suggest that if their lender will not accept the property with the $1,000, they offer their lender a promissory note in the amount of $1,000. That way the lender can have the property now and the hopes of collecting that $1,000. Otherwise, if the lender refuses and they take the property during foreclosure they will be stuck with that $1,000 lien anyway. It is a long shot but is the best answer for both the borrower and the lender.

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