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Facing Foreclosure? Your Kids Can Cope

By Cathy Moran

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I talk with clients about walking away from underwater houses day after day. *
  • The  mortgage payments on their home eat up fifty percent or more of their income.
  • They’re struggling now, and the mortgage will reset soon.
  • Attempts to modify the mortgage are fruitless.
  • They expect a foreclosure notice any day.

Yet despite the pain and the roadblocks,  these clients express reluctance to move because of the impact on their children.>

It’s our home, they intone.

It’s as though there can be only ONE home, and it’s this piece of real estate.

They imagine that moving will scar the kids and render them insecure and vulnerable.

Leaving a home that offers nothing but debt nonetheless seems to be a horrendous and overwhelming prospect.

More than their stressed-out selves can manage.

Stress makes you stupid.  Really.

Moving away from bad mortgage

That’s the parade of horrors that march through the minds of those facing decisions about a bad housing situation.

I got a peek at the actual impact of moving from a former client last week:  sheer and utter delight!

The two children, middle school and high school, were happy, making friends, and making grades.

The family had rented spacious and fresh housing in a lower cost community at less than 25% of the mortgage on the over encumbered house here.

The family income covered their living expenses and  they were able to make  provision for some savings.

Stresses were less, family life was satisfying and the future looked better.
And the house they walked from still sits here, empty and the loan unmodified.

A rewarding  home life turned out to be unrelated to living in the earlier house.

Home is wherever you are, not a piece of real estate.

* I write about walking away too.

H is for House

Three Questions When The House is Underwater

Get Cash For Keys After The Foreclosure

Image courtesy of Irene Nobrega & Flickr

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Filed Under: Real property & mortgages, True Stories

About Cathy Moran

I'm a veteran bankruptcy lawyer and consumer advocate in California's Silicon Valley. I write, teach, and speak in the hopes of expanding understanding of how bankruptcy can make life better in a family's future.

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About The Soapbox

You've arrived at the Bankruptcy Soapbox, a resource of bankruptcy information and consumer law.

Soapbox is a companion site to Bankruptcy in Brief, where I try to be largely explanatory and even handed (Note I said "try").

Here, I allow myself to tell stories and express strong opinions on how I think law should work for the consumer and small businesses when it comes to debt.

Moran Law Group
Bankruptcy specialists for individuals and small businesses in the San Francisco Bay Area

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