Although the Senate is dithering and bottling up the mortgage modification legislation approved in the House, it is still possible to remove a second or third lien from your primary residence using the Zimmer decision.  For example, your house is worth $500,000 and the first mortgage is $550,000.  There is a second and third on the house for another $120,500.   These last two liens (the second and third) can be stripped out.

In re Zimmer, 313 F.3d 1220 (9th Cir. 2002) held that  a wholly unsecured lien holder is not entitled to the protections of § 1322(b)(2); The holding of In re Lam, 211 B.R. 36 (9th Cir. B.A.P. 1997) approved.

To find out if Zimmer case might help you keep the home, contact us.

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 21st, 2009 at 6:09 pm and is filed under Bankruptcy, Second Mortgages. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.