Quit Claim Deed Problem
Question: My wife filed a quit claim deed with her former fiance, but now her credit is being affected because he is making late payments. What can we do?
I have a question concerning a quit claim deed. In my wife filed a quit claim deed with her former fiancé on the house in Baroda, Michigan, that they owned together. She later moved to Oregon and had a credit check done and noticed that she had very bad credit due to the fact that her former fiancé was making numerous late payments on the home for years. After that she made contact with him to let him know that this was affecting her. He would have to re-finance to get her name off the mortgage. He never did refinance, numerous times we contacted him and with no response, nothing was done.
So the question now is what can she do? Does she have any legal right to anything? Can she force the sale of the home? How can we stop this from affecting her credit? We have contacted lawyers out in Oregon and in Michigan and they told us she would have to file for bankruptcy, but that is not a route that we want to take. I also contacted the mortgage company they were no help.
Any help you can give or even to steer us in the right direction would be so greatly appreciated.
Answer: Thank you for the email. I wish I could help you. Once your wife signed the quit claim deed, she lost all bargaining power in the situation. She gave all of her right title and interest in the property to the other man. However, as you and she have learned, she is still one hundred percent liable on the debt owed to the mortgage holder. The attorney who advised that bankruptcy would be the only way, acting alone, to put this problem behind her was very likely correct. The bankruptcy however creates problems also. To get this off of her credit, the former fiancé will have to pay off the mortgage or sell the home and have it paid off at closing. However, she has no leverage to force either. Isn’t it fortunate she did not marry him? I would recommend that she write a letter to file with the credit reporting agencies detailing the situation and that it is her former fiancé who is the causing the problem.
Attorney: Mark Miller
