Current wifes name on mortgage and not on Title

My current wife bought a condo in San Diego back in 1997.  She married her 1st husband in late 2001.  They refianced a few times thereafter.  In 2008 she divorced and gave up interest in the property to her X-husband.

She filed a Quit-Claim deed and had her name removed from title.  Unfortunately her name is still on the mortgage by herself.

So basiaclly the situation is X-Husband on Title by himself.  Wife is on mortgage by herself.

Now the kicker is that my wife filed for bankruptcy in 2007 and stated in the bankruptcy that the property is to be abandoned.

Its been 5 years after the bankruptcy and her X-Husband still living in the property and has managed to continue making payments on the HOA, Prop Taxes, and Mortgage.  In Short...The house is about 100,000 underwater and my wife wants nothing to do with it.

Question 1:  Does the discharge Chapter 7 have a shelf life?  If her husband all of a sudden decides to leave the house will the discharge still be honored by the bank/lender?

Question 2: I forsee the house going into forclosure sooner than later...Since she is not on title anymore due to the Quit Claim deed..If HOA dues and fines begin to incur will she be liable for those or is she protected by the Quit Claim.

I am guessing that her BK discharge covers the mortgage debt in question. If the debt was properly listed on her BK petition (creditor's matrix, etc.), she should be OK on that one.The mortgage company is not likely to foreclose as long as it keeps receiving payments. Many people do not reaffirm a mortgage debt in bankruptcy, but continue to pay on a mortgage debt even after a chapter 7 discharge.  (After all, most of us think that having a roof over our head is a nice thing.)

I do not know the answer to the HOA question, but I would think that it would go after whoever is currently on title. If someone recorded that Quit Claim in the county land records, it would take some creative thinking on the part of the HOA to hold her legally responsible. What your wife might want to do is make certain the Quit Claim was properly recorded. HOA's have been known to engage in "creative thinking".

Have your wife check the county recorder (can probably do it online) to make sure that the quitclaim deed was recorded in 2008.

If the quitclaim deed was properly recorded in 2008 she's likely in the clear for any HOA issue that occurred after the quitclaim date.

If the mortgage was properly discharged in bankruptcy then she's done with that forever. She can look up her file documents (if she doesn't have copies) on http://www.pacer.gov/index.html

ciscodilla:

Does the discharge Chapter 7 have a shelf life?  If her husband all of a sudden decides to leave the house will the discharge still be honored by the bank/lender?

I'm not sure if these are two separate questions.  If they are, I don't understand the first one.  The answer to the second question is that, if the lender does not "honor" the discharge, your wife will have a claim against it for violation of federal bankruptcy law (I'm assuming, of course, that, when she filed for bankruptcy, in addition to abandoning the interest in the property that she no longer had, she also listed the mortgage obligation in her schedule of debts).

ciscodilla:

I forsee the house going into forclosure sooner than later...Since she is not on title anymore due to the Quit Claim deed..If HOA dues and fines begin to incur will she be liable for those or is she protected by the Quit Claim.

Her bankruptcy discharge should apply here as well (again, assuming the filing was done properly).  That said, it's entirely likely that the HOA's recourse is solely against the property and not against the property owners.

In July 2007 my wife received the discharge notification which included the house as being abandoned during the bankruptcy.  The house was never re-affirmed and Her husband continued living in the propery and making payments to the propoerty, HOA, and taxes.

Now on 9/30/2007 a special assessment fee of $1000 was incurred and another $1000 fee was incurred the following month on 10/30/2007 on her HOA.  Supposidly for roof repairs.  Those fees have never been paid as of yet.  This all happened 2-3 months after the bankruptcy took place.

On January of 2008 the house was Quit Claimed to her X-Husband.

Now when I call the HOA they only show her X-Husband on the Billing.

So is this somethingting that can still come back and bite us? And is it likely to?

Please advise...

Laymans read:

It reads as if the house was included in the bankruptcy --keep good copies of those proceedings.

While unlikley--a lender could  try to jawbone  her into paying  --her defense is the bankruptcy discharge

It might be prudent to access one of the truly free portals to ones credit reports and see if any incorrect stuff is on any one of the big three.

If I was really worried, which I would NOT be right now, I might pay a title search firm to run a search on my prior property and my name --just in case any serious warts are found.