Selling

Benefits Of Selling Your Home Before Legal Action

Proactively selling your home before legal action will almost always give you a better price for your property as well as save on other expenses and adverse credit records that are incurred during the lengthy and stressful legal process.

There are many steps a distressed homeowner can take if they are falling behind on their bond payments. These include a long-term payment arrangement such as a six to 12 months extension, or a short-term restructure of payments,” says Calvin Ndlovu, head of operations at FNB Home Loans.

“However, if repaying your home loan is just not possible, you need to seriously consider getting your bank’s help to sell your property on the open market, rather than going through the legal process.”

All banks offer solutions to distressed customers to sell their properties on the open market. FNB’s own tool, QuickSell, was introduced in 2009 to help customers sell their properties on the open market and realise better value, before going down the legal route.

Most customers don’t realise that the bank is not interested in owning property. We would far rather help them realise the best value for their property than go down the route of attaching a property and forced selling through a sheriff’s auction,” says Ndlovu.

The benefits outlined below far outweigh going through the entire legal process and selling the house on a sheriff’s auction.

Most banks have solid systems and tools in place to help customers through the selling process. It is in the bank and the customers’ best interest to realise the best possible price for their home as this will help to cover any potential shortfall and leave consumers in a good position to re-establish themselves financially.

Other advantages include possible discounts and free services.

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FNB offers discounts of up to 25 percent of the outstanding home loan balance when there is a shortfall after the sale of the property and any remaining shortfall after going through the QuickSell process will be repayable over 10 years, interest-free.

“We contract established, well-known estate agents that invest the necessary time, energy and money in marketing the homes on all their channels,” says Ndlovu.

“We also give the customer a free valuation and an indication what price to expect, so that the customer has certainty on the process. It’s important to contact your bank to find out what it offers their customers in the way of help through the process.”

Ndlovu says that, on average, over the last year homes that are in the QuickSell programme have spent around two months on the market and realised in excess of 85 percent of their value prices, which is a far better result for customers that are in distress as they are able to fairly quickly go through the selling process and get good value.

“Houses sold on auction usually don’t fare as well as those sold on the open market, and go through a very lengthy, time-consuming process before they are finally sold on auction.”

While selling your home due to financial pressure is very emotional and stressful, homeowners in distress don’t always consider the other implications such as having to go through the legal process and end up paying high legal fees.

“Once a home has been attached and sold on a sheriff’s auction, customers not only have the potential shortfall amount that they will be expected to continue paying for the next 30 years, but also an adverse judgment on their credit record,” says Ndlovu.

“An adverse credit record will mean that will applying for any additional credit will be difficult, and will also weigh against you when trying to rent another place. Most rentals will require a credit check, and it now becomes very difficult for someone who has gone through the judicial process to rent a place to live.”

The best course of action is to seek the bank’s help before legal action is taken. Getting into financial difficulty and the process of going into arrears and the legal action that follows is highly stressful and customers sometimes try to avoid this completely, by not engaging with the bank. However, the best possible outcome for the customer and the bank in these situations is to make use of the solutions and tools that banks have in place to realise the best possible price for your property,” says Ndlovu.


This article “Benefits Of Selling Your Home Before Legal Action” was issued by FNB Home Loans – http://blog.fnb.co.za/

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