What are my options to keep a home that I have been lease purchasing for 15 years?
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Answer:
The terms of your contract will generally determine your rights and obligations as well as those of the co-tenant. You should carefully review the terms of the lease to determine your rights and obligations.
Contracts are agreements that are legally enforceable. A contract is an agreement between two parties that creates an obligation to do or refrain from doing a particular thing. The purpose of a contract is to establish the terms of the agreement by which the parties have fixed their rights and duties. An oral contract is an agreement made with spoken words and either no writing or only partially written. An oral contract may generally be enforced the same as a written agreement. However, it is much more difficult with an oral contract to prove its existence or the terms. Oral contracts also usually have a shorter time period within which a person seeking to enforce their contract right must sue. A written contract generally provides a longer time to sue than for breach of an oral contract. Contracts are mainly governed by state statutory and common (judge-made) law and private law. Private law generally refers to the terms of the agreement between the parties, as parties have freedom to override many state law requirements regarding formalities of contracts. Each state has developed its own common law of contracts, which consists of a body of jurisprudence developed over time by trial and appellate courts on a case-by-case basis.
An unjustifiable failure to perform all or some part of a contractual duty is a breach of contract. A legal action for breach of contract arises when at least one party's performance does not live up to the terms of the contract and causes the other party to suffer economic damage or other types of measurable injury. A lawsuit for breach of contract is a civil action and the remedies awarded are designed to place the injured party in the position they would be in if not for the breach. Remedies for contractual breaches are not designed to punish the breaching party. The five basic remedies for breach of contract include the following: money damages, restitution, rescission, reformation, and specific performance. A money damage award includes a sum of money that is given as compensation for financial losses caused by a breach of contract. Parties injured by a breach are entitled to the benefit of the bargain they entered, or the net gain that would have accrued but for the breach. The type of breach governs the extent of damages that may be recovered.
Restitution is a remedy designed to restore the injured party to the position occupied prior to the formation of the contract. Parties seeking restitution may not request to be compensated for lost profits or other earnings caused by a breach. Instead, restitution aims at returning to the plaintiff any money or property given to the defendant under the contract. Plaintiffs typically seek restitution when contracts they have entered are voided by courts due to a defendant's incompetence or incapacity.
Rescission is the name for the remedy that terminates the contractual duties of both parties, while reformation is the name for the remedy that allows courts to change the substance of a contract to correct inequities that were suffered. In order to have a rescission, both parties to the contract must be placed in the position they occupied before the contract was made. Courts have held that a party may rescind a contract for fraud, incapacity, duress, undue influence, material breach in performance of a promise, or mistake, among other grounds.
Specific performance is an equitable remedy that compels one party to perform, as nearly as practicable, his or her duties specified by the contract. Specific performance is available only when money damages are inadequate to compensate the plaintiff for the breach
Promissory estoppel is a term used in contract law that applies where, although there may not otherwise be an enforceable contract, because one party has relied on the promise of the other, it would be unfair not to enforce the agreement. Promissory estoppel arises from a promise which the promisor should reasonably expect to induce action or forebearance of a definite and substantial character on the part of the promisee and which does induce such action or forebearance in binding if injustice can be avoided only by enforcement of the promise. Detrimental reliance is a term commonly used to force another to perform their obligations under a contract, using the theory of promissory estoppel. Promissory estoppel may apply when a promise was made; reliance on the promise was reasonable or foreseeable; there was actual and reasonable reliance on the promise; the reliance was detrimental; and injustice can only be prevented by enforcing the promise. Detrimental reliance must be shown to involve reliance that is reasonable, which is a determination made on an individual case-by-case basis, taking all factors into consideration. Detrimental means that some type of harm is suffered.
Reasonable reliance is usually referred to as a theory of recovery in contract law. It was what a prudent person might believe and act upon based on something told by another. Sometimes a person acts in reliance on the promise of a profit or other benefit, only to learn that the statements or promises were either incorrect or were exaggerated. The one who acted to their detriment in reasonable reliance may recover damages for the costs of his/her actions or demand performance. Reasonable reliance connotes the use of the standard of ordinary and average person.
During the past decade, mortgages were sold and resold, bundled into securities and sold to investors. In many cases, the original note signed by the homeowner was lost, stored away in a distant warehouse or destroyed. Persuading a judge to compel production of hard-to-find or nonexistent documents can, at the very least, delay foreclosure, buying the homeowner some time and increasing the pressure on the lender to renegotiate the mortgage. The original note is almost always electronically retained and can eventually be found.
Judges are often willing to accept electronic documentation. Lenders are sometimes allowed to produce other paperwork to establish they are the holder of a loan. There have been cases where the foreclosure action was thrown out because of a failure to produce the note, but it will be a matter of subjective determination for the court to decide if the foreclosure may proceed.
In Indiana, the date the mortgage was signed determines the length of time a lender must wait between filing the suit and proceeding with the foreclosure sale. The wait time is between three (3) to twelve (12) months, but the owner may file a waiver of the time limit, which allows the sale to proceed without delay. When this occurs, the lender loses the right to pursue a deficiency judgment.
The foreclosure sale process involves publishing an ad once a week for three weeks. The first ad must be run 30 days before the sale. At the time the first ad is run, each owner must be served with notice of the foreclosure sale by the sheriff. The sheriff conveys title by a deed given immediately after the sale. The owner may reside in the property, rent free, until the foreclosure sale, as long as the owner doesn't damage the property..
Once you are in court, you can defenses and the debtor typically asks the court for three things, in the following order:
-a temporary restraining order (which lasts for a certain number of days, typically under 2 weeks)
-a preliminary injunction (will last until the court decides the case), and
-a permanent injunction (which will be granted if you win your case).
Lack of funds and inability to pay is not considered a valid defense. A valid defense may include such excuses as identifying the incorrect borrowing party to the loan contract, or having made all payments on time, among others. The answer is an opportunity to show why the property shouldn't be foreclosed upon.
I am prohibited from giving a legal opinion, the is service provides information of a general legal nautre. I suggest you be persistent in getting a response from the attorney who is able to review all the facts and documents involved.