Can the mortgage company take my car?

[patcap11]

Will the mortgage company take my car if I do a short sale or foreclose on my home? I still owe about $13,500 on my 2-year old car, which is worth about $17,000. I've had serious health problems this year and am probably going to have to finally throw in the towel on keeping my home. I have no savings left and no other assets. I am seriously considering trying a short sale but my realtor advised me to sell my car first, immediately. If I sell this car with my worsening credit, I don't know if or when I will be able to get another reliable one. Right now my car is the only thing I will have to start over with. Any suggestions on how I can legally keep it?

[Wonder]

The house was the collateral, not your car. They may not take the car.-MM

[swsw1fu]

The mortgage company has no power over any of your assets except your home.The only company that can repossess your car is the bank that issued you the loan on it. Your Realtor may be worried about the extra paperwork, and the fact that the mortgage company will automatically reduce the commission to be split between buying and selling agents to 5%. Ask he\she if they have done a short sale before, and if not, if their broker has an agent in their office who can assist you. If not, find another Realtor. Have you contacted your mortgage company to let them know of your dire straits??? They would rather work out a solution with you than own your home. If a short sale is in order, do make sure that the amount the home is sold for covers your short sale amount agreed upon by the mortgage company, all property taxes, leins, and the realtor commision.Any realtor worth their salt can handle all of this for you. If you need to talk to a lawyer, you may want to look up a legal aid agency in your area. DO NOT FALL FOR THE BUYOUT SCHEMES THAT HAVE BEEN POPPING UP LATELY!

[Traveler]

Before choosing to go with the foreclosure, you should look into a few other options first. Refinancing is the option that most homeowners attempt first, but credit/income and tighter lending have precluded most homeowners from qualifying for a loan right now.Either way, you should list the house on the market just on the off-chance someone wants to purchase it before the foreclosure goes through. You can also try to work with the lender for a short sale, where you'd sell the property for less than what you owe on it. At least it will pay off the loan and save your credit a bit.If that doesn't work, ask the lender about giving a deed in lieu of foreclosure. That works as just giving the property back to the bank, and they can't go after anything else. They accept the deed instead of foreclosing or paying the loan, so there's nothing else for them to go after. This is only slightly better than a foreclosure, but anything you can do to preserve your credit will help at this point.It will depend on how the bank pursues the foreclosure if they can sue you for another judgment and go after any other assets. With just the foreclosure, though, they are not entitled to anything else. You pledged the house as collateral for the loan -- not your car, 401(k), or prize racehorse. So all that they can take as payment for the loan is the house.Look up California's state foreclosure laws and consult your loan documents to determine what kind of foreclosure the bank can proceed with (Judicial or Non-Judicial). That will tell you if they can sue you afterwards and try to go after any other assets.Banks rarely sue for deficiency judgments, though, since they know that foreclosure victims don't have a lot of extra cash or even the ability to borrow any money. It costs the lender extra time to sue you and there's no guarantee they'd be able to collect on the judgment, so most don't bother with the judgment at all. Hope that helps.