How I almost lost my home

Since this is a blog, its really about stories, right.

Well, here's mine.

As a good citizen of the credit world, my wife and I made sure that our bills were always paid on time. I started my own business in 1997, it was a sign business I ran out of my basement in Fenton, (St. Louis area) Missouri. I called that business "any Kinda Sign except electric" Now, this isn't about that business but you need to know that I was a reputable human being before I moved to Florida. This business grew and I began doing electric signs so I dropped "except electric" from my name. I grew into a commercial location then in March of 2000 I contracted with SWBYPS (yellow pages) to have the largest ad in the sign section. I was duped. I was told that ad would net me 212 calls a day. Did I believe that? Not really, I hoped to get 10% of them as I was getting about seven a day at the time.

Anyway I stayed in business for a decade but I struggled. SWBYPS sued me and I counter sued, we settled.

So, after that fight I was burned out on being a business owner and I decided to move to Florida so off we were to Central Florida. We landed in a Town called Clermont and I landed a great job selling awnings and electric signs. That was 2007.

After losing that job I found myself in underpaying job after job until the sign market completely dried up. That caused us to stop paying our mortgage and go into foreclosure. At first I had no idea what to do. I had seen some neighbors hand over their keys and walk away but I was determined to stay. I found someone who could help me fight. We put together a defense but in court the plaintiff lied and I lost. My house was due to sell December 28, 2009. I found a service to help me postpone the sale and I was successful. Then the sale came up again in February and I repeated that process and it was detained again. Now Bank of America is slow to process the sales and I am reaping the rewards of that.

So it's been three years without a payment and it looks like we have a pretty good shot at winning the house free and clear, but there are a few things I need to do.

I'll let you know about that later.