Dear Gang:
This will shock some of you, but I cannot help but tell the truth:
Even though both of them get people wet, a rainstorm is not the same thing as a dam breaking. Surprising, I know.
This is largely a matter of semantics, but the distinction makes a huge difference in the way the situation gets handled, how long it takes, and the possible outcomes. I lost count of how many times it's happened in this thread, and since I ceaselessly strive to edify, enlighten, and entertain, I thought a little clarification on this matter might be a Good Thing™. (You're Welcome.) Some will claim that all ways you can get wet are the same thing because in the end, you're wet, whether you get blasted with a firehose or wrapped in chains and thrown off a boat by the Mafia. Believe it or not, there are some subtle distinctions. Those who disagree are of course welcome to their opinion -- now step over here, because I want you to try out my new pleasant spring rain. I bought it used from a government surplus auction, where it was called a "waterboard." I prefer "pleasant spring rain" because since they both get you wet there's no difference. Right?
Car dealers own the cars they sell. If you go to a car dealer and buy a new car with money basically borrowed from them, you have possession but they have a lien. In one sense it still belongs partially to the dealer until you don't owe them or their lenders any more money. If you let the payments go into arrears, at some point they are legally justified in taking the car back. They possessed it once, now they have repossessed it. In order to repossess something, you must have possessed it at some point in the past.
You do not buy a house from a bank. You get a loan from the bank that lets you pay the house's present owner the agreed-on price. The bank did not own the house, nor did they possess it. Since they never possessed nor owned it, they (by definition) can't repossess it. Now, they
do have a trust deed with your signature on it, and plenty of legal standing for taking action if the loan becomes unprofitable because it's not being paid.
You find out your car is being respossessed if you're lucky enough to be awake when you hear someone start the engine at 2 in the morning and take off down the driveway. If you're quick, you might be able to jump on the hood to slow them down, but it's going away and there ain't shit you can do about it at that point.
What a bank does is "foreclosure," not "repossession." It's a long legal process that involves papers being served, certified letters, and time to sell the place or make other financial arrangements. Sometimes they'll let you set up a short sale, where they know the house isn't worth what you owe anyway and they're willing to cut their losses and clear the loan for less than what's owed. It's a lot less liquid and a lot more expensive than a car. If you don't pay your car loan, the dealer isn't out too much money by repossessing and reselling it, and car dealers are in the business of buying, selling, and maintaining cars. They have personnel and facilities to do all of that. Banks are not in the business of buying and selling houses, and they don't have a staff of people to mow lawns and patch roofs. When your car gets repossessed, it's done by a repo man as quickly and quietly as they can; the dealer wants the car back. When your house gets foreclosed, it's done by bank executives and lawyers, you have truckloads of warnings and notifications, and months if not years of time to deal with it. Unlike the car dealer, the bank absolutely does not want the house. They'd much, much rather that you dealt with the problem some other way, and give you tons of opportunity and time to do that. What a bank does with a house is in no sense a repossession. You can't take something back that you never had, mmmkay? So stop saying the house will be repossessed. It can't be.
Barb will die any second now because her body will consist entirely of holes and therefore cease to exist -- perhaps even preceding Chris's death from a heart attack after he learned that his type 2 diabetes requires the sudden amputation of all protruberances. (Of course, and the many experts here will agree with me, he'll be in the medical textbooks for achieving the world-record shortest time between the onset of diabetes, the subsequent development of diabetic neuropathy, and its degeneration to the point that amputation is necessary -- beating the second-place holder by being tens of thousands of times faster at it, but that'll be small consolation when he's dead.) There is no way on God's green Earth that there isn't a mortgage without mortgage insurance on Barb, good people, so it will be impossible for Chris to have the house foreclosed, repossessed, or anything else because
the mortgage will be paid off by the insurance. The insurance was a requirement to get the mortgage. It always is.
My ex-wife and I bought a house in Redondo Beach, CA. If either one of us had died, the house would have been immediately been free and clear, the surviving partner receiving full possession. We had absolutely no choice and didn't "decide" to go get insurance, just in case. The bank decided that we get insurance, just in case, and just in case we didn't decide to get insurance, they made it clear they'd get it for us -- and if we somehow found a way to block
that because we don't need no stinking insurance, you silly bank, they would point out that escrow doesn't close until they say so. But gee, you say, if it took both our incomes to stay up on the payments, and if one of us died the other might not be able to do so, why they could easily have the house! Exactly. They knew that very well, and did everything possible to make it very difficult for them to wind up with the house. Banks do not employ teams of repo men. (At least my bank doesn't -- that I know of, anyway.) A few years later, I bought a house on my own and needed a mortgage to meet the price -- I had the insurance already arranged and the loan approved before escrow even opened, and it was no less a requirement then than it was the first time.
By the way, could the legal experts here clarify a point? What, exactly, would make Chris liable for repayment of a loan that was taken out by other people, now deceased? Chris wasn't loaned any money for the house. Likewise (I don't owe anyone anything ATM so this is made up, but the point stands
if I died tomorrow, would all of you have to chip in to pay off my credit cards? You didn't make the charges on them -- can people be held responsible to repay money they didn't borrow? I don't know, but I suppose t's possible (if my memories of "no insurance = no loan" were one of those LSD flashbacks they've been promising us all these years) the bank might sue the
estate, but that opens a real can of worms and the price of the lawyers they'd have to use would be more than the property value. Banks aren't usually interested in finding sure-fire ways to lose even more money after taking just one loss, even though they'd wind up with the house they want so much. (Oops, strike that last.) Shocking, I know.
But forget about Barb. When Chris dies (I believe it was decided beyond any doubt this will happen the second or third week of February, but I'd have to recheck the threads) -- then
no one will be making payments! Who will the bank take the house back from, then? They probably don't know about Patti, and are unlikely to dig her up. Perhaps we should alert them to her (previous) existence. Post on their Facebook, or something.
So yeah, (and I'm being serious from here on out) repossession and foreclosure
are the same thing in one sense -- someone you owe money to because of something you took out a loan to buy takes it away from you after you get seriously behind on the payments -- but the words aren't synonymous. The car dealer pays a few hundred bucks to a repo man to get the car back, they are in the business of selling cars so they're happy to have it, they don't tell you ahead of time, and the whole deal can happen between lunch and midnight. The bank pays tens of thousands to lawyers, local government (the county recorder, etc.), to get a house they don't want and hate the idea of having, can't "take back" something they never had in the first place, and the whole dance takes months if not years. THERE'S A DIFFERENCE. STOP USING THE WRONG WORD kthx.
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from somewhere for Chris to go on his sperg iphone spending spree after Bob's death and I don't think Barb's white trash antics of asking people for money at the funeral would have netted them that much to buy multiple iphones and other shit.
P 
