What rights do I have?

[sd92128]

owner1 bought a house and only owner1 on the loan and on the title. 

Later, owner1 added two owners to the title.
owner1 owns 25% owner2 owns 25% and owner3 owns 50%, as of now, the house is underwater about 100k, owner1 and owner2 been paying for the lost monthly mortgage for 5 yrs and wants to refi or sell the house to take the lost, but owner3 doesnt want to quitclaim herself out nor sign any paperwork for owner1 & owner2 to refi.

What are the options for owner 1 ?

[CA renter]

Ugly. 🙁

Is this a rental or primary residence? Do all owners live there? What compensation did the other owners (2&3) give in return for ownership? What is the reason for #3 not wanting to assist with a refi or short sale?

[sd92128]

From my understanding, it’s an investment property.

Owner 3 put in double the down payment vs owner 1&2, loan in owner 1 only due to bad credit for owner 2&3.

Owner 3 thinks if he signs off, he won’t get quitclaimed back on.

What happens if owner 1 decides to let the home go into foreclosure, how will that affect owner 2 & 3 since they are not on the loan?

[(former)FormerSanDiegan]

PLAN A –
First, draft up an agreement, with a property lawyer stating that you will recognize owner #3’s stake after the refinance. Include all the contingencies necessary to make them comfortable (e.g. what happens if refinance doesn’t go through, etc)
Explain to owner #3 that the situation will be beneficial to all if you re-fi. Holding costs will go down and owner #1 and #2 will not be forced to sell or default on the loan.

PLAN B –
If that does not work, the partnership is not working. Dissolve it by any means necessary.
Easiest way is to sell the property. If owner #3 doesn’t want to sell, sue them or stop making payments, whatever it takes. Offer to buy them out for half their loss. (They pay you 25K to take their name off the property).
If they cannot go along with plan, tell them you will let it foreclose and sue them for half the loss (assuming that your agreement or partnership of 50% stake is documented).

Lesson Learned:
Never set up ownership stake in property where the incentives are unequal among the parties. By having one party make a down payment and other parties make the monthly payment, this puts parties into different boats, with different incentives. If one party is cash poor and the other makes the down payment, have a separate loan agreement among the owners to each other, but still have all three on the loan.

[Coronita]

[quote=FormerSanDiegan]PLAN A –
First, draft up an agreement, with a property lawyer stating that you will recognize owner #3’s stake after the refinance. Include all the contingencies necessary to make them comfortable (e.g. what happens if refinance doesn’t go through, etc)
Explain to owner #3 that the situation will be beneficial to all if you re-fi. Holding costs will go down and owner #1 and #2 will not be forced to sell or default on the loan.

PLAN B –
If that does not work, the partnership is not working. Dissolve it by any means necessary.
Easiest way is to sell the property. If owner #3 doesn’t want to sell, sue them or stop making payments, whatever it takes. Offer to buy them out for half their loss. (They pay you 25K to take their name off the property).
If they cannot go along with plan, tell them you will let it foreclose and sue them for half the loss (assuming that your agreement or partnership of 50% stake is documented).

Lesson Learned:
Never set up ownership stake in property where the incentives are unequal among the parties. By having one party make a down payment and other parties make the monthly payment, this puts parties into different boats, with different incentives. If one party is cash poor and the other makes the down payment, have a separate loan agreement among the owners to each other, but still have all three on the loan.[/quote]

…Or if you must setup a partnership… do something really slimmy…

There’s some folks involved in a partnership property investment that I’m trying to do some investigation for…

The one who setup the partnership really screwed the other investors bigtime…

Basically, the partnership started out equal…BUT, as part of the agreement, it stipulated that all costs must be divided equally among partners..If a partner cannot pay for his/her cost share, it gets deducted from his/her ownership stake + 10%interest charge paid to the property manager (who also is a partner)..

That partner/property manager made up a bunch of bullshit expenses throughout the course of twenty years, and since the original group of investors didn’t want to put any more money in, let him deduct it from their ownership stake + interest.
Dude ended up taking over the ownership of the property as the rest of the “partners” were squeezed out….

[Author]

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