Do I stand any chance of getting a home loan?

[Mondavi]

First off my middle score is 690. Looking for around a 300k home and have 20% to put down. Make about 65k a year and have zero debt besides what I have below. Also have about 150k in stocks not part of my 20% down.

He is my situation. I bought a new boat in 2005. In 2007 I changed jobs and needed to sell my boat. I posted it online on a boat selling site. I was contacted by a Company called International Marina. Guess they were a company that was for people with less than perfect credit. The buyer would pay them 6 months payments in advance and then payments were sent to my bank. They said they had a buyer. Did research on the company and at the time there were no negative remarks about them. So I received a contract from them went over it and everything looked legit. Buyer and I put our signatures on the contract.

I must have been out of my mind. Unfortunately I did not realize this at the time. Leaving my name on the CONTRACT. So the buyer drove out from back east to CA where I live and picked the boat up. This was in Jan 2007. It was not until Feb. of 2008 that the Bank called and said you are 3 months late on payments. So I called the company and went off on them. They said it was the the finance company they used fault. So I contacted them and they played dumb. Finally they went and paid my account to full. Two months later bank calls and same thing no payments. At this point I was so afraid of what could happen so I contacted that states Attorneys General and he said there were 100's of complaints about this company and their finance company Great Oaks Assets Mgmt. He advised to get a lawyer and go that route.

So a year went bye and nothing happened. Then a CA sent a settlement letter asking to settle for 22k. The amount I still owed was 36k. On advice from my lawyer he said ignore it. Most of CA's would leave messages confused on the situation " saying that they see I sold the boat" This has went on with about 5 different CA's now. None reported on my credit reports.

I am to the point now that I want to try for a house. This is reporting as a CO for 41k on all my reports still with the OC. I live in CA now. When I bought the boat I lived in CA. My first delinquency was June of 2008. So its been over four years with no payments made. So I hope if they at some point try to sue I can use the SOL as my defense. I believe SOL is 4 years in CA.

Turns out this company was a huge scam. You can goggle the name of the company and see what they have done. They just took all of these buyers money and once they got enough money they just walked away and ripped everyone off.

I should note that I have a letter from this company saying the boat was sold and no longer in my possession. I needed it because county was trying to charge me taxes on my boat. Not sure if that will help my situation.

Do I have any chance that I could get approved in manual underwriting? I was pre approved 6 months ago however my scores were not as high as I wanted them. So I stopped looking until I reach a 700 score.

I have no desire to pay a debt that I was 100% ripped off on. I just hope someone can understand my situation.

Oh and also I have no idea where on this planet my boat is.

Thanks for your help and taking the time to read my long post.

[Tommy5746]

Have you gone to the Better Business Bureau??? They are good at helping out in situations like this.. The problem is that yes, you WERE a victim of some serious scam artists and goons.. However, an underwriter isn’t an attorney and they can’t do investigative work on their own to determine faults in terms of fraud. However, if you had filed a lawsuit or a case with the better business bureau THEN you could go to the underwriter and say "I was a victim and here is the proof.. a case is opened up with the BBB and I have contacted the attorney general". If you do nothing more about it and just let it sit then a bank will never go for that... they will need to see significant proof that this was fraud.. an underwriter isn’t going to Google the company and say "oh yea, that’s fraud!". If you take all necessary action AND provide all of the proof of this action against the company to the bank then you stand a chance.. Since the "crash" a few years ago banks simply don’t take chances like they used to.. So it’s important you provide all sources of proof to the bank that you are fighting this... Best of luck!

[KnewBee]

Mondavi, sorry this happened to you, what a nightmare! Based on my own experiences and research, i dont think this would completely prevent you from getting a home loan, although it would almost certainly lead to a higher rate than what you would qualify for without it, and some lenders require old outstanding debts to be paid off prior to the loan, which obviously you would not want to do In this case.  The best advice I could give if you are trying to get a home loan fast would be to talk directly to one or more loan officers with all the paperwork that you currently have and have them advise you on your options. If this is your only baddie and you have really good documentation on it, this should definatley help although your results will obviously vary by lender.

[Mondavi]

Thanks for the responses. Do you think I would be at a higher rate because this is on my report even if I do get my score to 700? I am close now at 690.

Would it be to late to do the BBB route now? I looked for those compaines and could not find them on the BBB site.

I think I may get my lawyer invloved again. Maybe they would take a settement with a PFD I would only offer a low one. Had one CA that would have settle for like 21k years ago. Maybe half that is the max I would go. I want to get a house soon prices are going up where I live and I cant beat interest rates right now.

Another thing am I correct on being past the SOL of being sued in CA?

[KnewBee]

Mondavi, you are past SOL in CA, it is 4 years from the breach of contract or last payment. You can do a BBB complaint or other complaint anytime you like, what you want to be careful about is if your goal is to close a mortgage fast you want to avoid the account showing as in dispute on your credit report. Many loan companies will not close a mortgage with an account showing in dispute on your reports. Not always, but sometimes a BBB complaint could possibly result in the account showing in dispute on your report if the BBB contacts the reporting creditor and they update it that way. From my understanding on rates, they are usually based on the mid-score so anything you do to get the scores higher will help, its hard to know exactly what your scores and rates would be without the baddie. Getting a slightly higher rate than you would have qualified for without this baddie may be a better thing than waiting as a slightly higher rate could be a very minor difference in monthly payment, where waiting the rates and home prices could go way up in the future anyway, no way to know for sure. 

You probably want to avoid paying it off or settling it until you talk to a mortgage lender. Sometimes as counter Intuative as it sounds paying off or settling an old debt can actually temporarily lower your score as it updates the date of last activity on your account.

The best thing you can do is talk to several loan officers or mortgage lenders and follow their specific advise for your situation. You will get good general advice here in this forum, but because your situation is so specific, and mortgage lending is so complex and varies so much by mortgage lender, I think the only way you will get the right answers on this is by talking directly to lenders and having them review your specifics. I hope this helps and good luck!