2 houses in Arizona, unable to modify our loan. If the house sell in short sale or if I give the house back to the bank can they come after our primary residence?

Question: We don’t know what to do, we have 2 houses in Arizona, 1st house we took out a loan of $60k (leaving us a loan amount of $220k) and used those $60k to build our 2nd home which is now our primary residence we have been living in it for 1yr 4months and we were renting out the 1st house to help us pay the loan, but now we have been unable to get renters in and my husband got fired from work and has been unable to find a job, this month will be our first month not be able to make the mortgage payment, I called the bank and they told me that they were unable to modify our loan since we have 2 houses and 1 is not owner occupied. I spoke to anther department and asked them about a deed in lieu foreclosure, all they told me was that the house would need to be in short sale for 90 days before they could talk to me about that. So my question is if the house sell in short sale or if I give the house back to the bank deed in lieu foreclosure can they come after our primary residence to collect money and if they will can I change the deed of trust to owner primary home (which is free and clear of any loans) before the bank tries to get involved to someone elses name so the bank wont take away our primary residence away? Thank you.

Answer: -This is a very common question…can the bank come after my other assets if I do a short sale, deed in lieu foreclosure or it just goes to auction. The answer is “NO”. When you signed the paperwork with the bank it specifically states that the home would be sufficient collateral for the loan. The only way they could come after other assets is if you pledged them as additional collateral in order to get the loan. So you don’t have anything to worry about. What you do have to worry about is a deficiency judgment where the lender can sue you for the difference that was not collected. Although this procedure is not common at all, it does happen once in a while and is more common in mortgage states. It does not happen very often because homeowners will just file bankruptcy and wipe it out altogether, which means the bank loses even more money. So more often they will issue the homeowner a 1099 for the amount they lost, which could be a significant amount. That is why a short sale is a better alternative because it’s less damaging on your credit, you can eliminate the deficiency judgment altogether if done properly, and in many cases you don’t have to pay as much when they 1099 you.