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Comment by Laura Marshall on September 15, 2011 at 3:12am

You may want to check with Citi and see if the account was actually sold to the collection company, or just referred out. If it was referred out, they may be able to pull it back. I have had that happen a few times. Other than that, there can be no additional contributions to the 2nd through escrow if you are going with HAFA.

Comment by Joshua Gayman on September 12, 2011 at 12:52pm

That's a toughy. Since the 2nd was SOLD to a collection company, it is unlikely that they will be willing to settle for $3,000. I would say to see if you can work out an agreement with them where they take the $3,000 from the first in HAFA, and then the seller agrees on an unsecured note for the difference. This would be the last option, as I would obviously never recomment anyone to just "fold" and offer an unsecured note, but if you are up against a foreclosure timeline it might be your only option. If you do have time, push extra hard and go savage with them to make them understand that if they don't take the $3,000 from the first, that they will never be able to make a dime off of your client, as your client A)doesn't have money to pay them and B) will just file BK if the seocnd won't accept the short sale. Even if you know your sellers would never actually file BK, the collection company doesn't know that...Make them believe that $3,000 is their best bet, because if it goes to foreclosure they will never have a chance of actually getting anything.