Archive for Uncategorized

Purchasing a home with permit issues

February 3, 2011 financial literacy, Tenants in Foreclosure, Uncategorized No comments

Its official, we are in escrow! We found a house to purchase and will get to soon leave our foreclosure nightmare behind. On Sunday I notified the landlords that we would be moving out and it felt so good. I also let them know that again I would be calling to make sure the home was not sold at auction on Feb 4th before paying the February rent.

That asked that we be sure to leave the house nice and have the carpets clean. Really? Of course we will leave the house in good repair, but it just irks me hearing them dictate what I need to do after all of the grief they have put us through these last 10 months.

It’s been a hard search finding the right how. Yes, there are a lot of homes on the market, but many are vacant and need repairs. When you are already putting 20% down on the home it’s hard to be able to find additional funds to repair the home.

The home we found is perfect for us and will make us happy for many years to come. There are some areas of concern that we have had to address during this process though. The first being that the home behind our new home is a foreclosure sale and is for sale for $180,000 less than the home we are purchasing. The home is slightly larger with a smaller less usable lot and needs some repairs, but still this is a large concern that our home’s value will decrease right after we move in due to the sale of this home. There really is nothing we can do about this, but with the market we are in it’s very unsettling.

The second issue that we have had to deal with is that the home we are purchasing was recently remodeled and there may be some permit issues. Most of the repairs were done by the homeowner and it appears that the permits may have been forced by the county because the work was being done by the homeowner without permits. The permits were closed out just days before the home was put on the market after being open for nearly 3 years.

Of course I did not think to look into this until our inspection came back with several electrical issues. I spoke with several inspectors at the county to find our more information. I encourage you do this if you ever have questions. They are very easy to reach and very helpful. I was able to find out about all of the permits and complaints filed on the home by going to www.portlandmaps.com. It lists all of the inspectors that were assigned to the permit and gives their phone number. I asked the electrical inspector how the home could pass inspection with so many items not being up to code. I was told by one inspector that there was over two years from when he saw the electrical work and gave the okay to drywall over. He said that there was a great potential that more was done in that time that he would not have seen at the final inspection time because everything was closed over.

I asked if the homeowner doing these repairs on his own left us open for any liability and he said that when you purchase a home you purchase any permit issues that may arise even if we did not initiate or do the work.

Did you know that when you purchase a home you are also purchasing any permitting issues the home may have?

My friend was a contractor and had a customer who had recently purchased the home and was doing some plumbing which required a county inspector. When the inspector came out he noticed that the home had a finished basement, but this was not on file with the county. All of the work had been done without permits. The customer had to hire my friend to rip out the entire basement and start all over bringing the whole thing up to code. It cost him about $30,000. He did not realize that when the box on the disclosures said that some repairs had been done without permits that it would mean he’d be open to such a huge liability. Yikes!

In Memory of James “Bill” Young

January 24, 2011 Uncategorized No comments

James “Bill” Young

This week we are mourning the loss of a dear family member of Financial Beginnings. On Friday January 21, 2011 James “Bill” Young passed away. Bill was a founding Board Member and even after his departing the Board he continued to be an avid supporter of Financial Beginnings.

Bill came to be a Founding Board Member as a favor to me. When we were creating Financial Beginnings we did everything, including scratch utilizing the Oregon Nonprofit Corporation Handbook. Though the book was great it still wasn’t enough for two 20 somethings to start a nonprofit. One of the requirements of running a nonprofit in Oregon is that you much have a minimum of three board members. We decided that it would be best to get some legal expertise on the board to help us through the logistics of getting the organization off the ground. I asked Bill if he would be willing to take a seat on the board and he gladly accepting.

We immediately found the need for his expertise as the draft of the articles and bylaws were not quite jiving and we did not know one thing about holding a board meeting. I recall Bill saying “be sure that the meeting minutes reflect…”. He served on the Board from 2005- 2008 which was just long enough for Financial Beginnings to get its foundation laid. You should have seen the Board at the first meeting without him trying to determine what should or shouldn’t be voted on. We immediately began to seek someone with legal expertise to join our team.

In the first years of Financial Beginnings I would always call Bill to share our successes. Bill was always one of the first I would call after getting a grant or setting up an important meeting. It’s almost fitting that Financial Beginnings was announced a large grant on the day of his death. I was definitely thinking of him as I was speaking to the foundation.

Even after Bill’s board term ended he continued to be one of our biggest supporters. He would always sponsor a table at our annual funding raising dinner: A Tale of Good Cents and each time we had a donor campaign he would always be one of the first to contribute. Every time I would see him he would ask about Financial Beginnings and tell me how impressed he was by what we are doing.

Bill grew to be such a huge support to not only Financial Beginnings but to me. He gave me support as I ventured into this unknown nonprofit business world with no expertise, but just passion. He taught me how to play racquet ball (and always beat me), allowed me to step on his toes on the dance floor and even in the last few months helped me as I struggled as a tenant in foreclosure. He became a family member to me. I feel so fortunate to have had him in my life.

“Having had the opportunity to work with Melody and reviewing the work of her volunteers I became more than ever convinced that Financial Beginnings has been, and will be, a strong force in the education of students in the greater Northwest Oregon. Having the tools to understand basic banking, the use, and misuse , of credit and the value of the dollar is sadly not readily available to all and in too many cases involve topics not discussed in many students’ homes. All of that and more is offered by Financial Beginnings which is why I shall continue to lend some financial support to the enterprise.” – Bill Young 2010.

Tenants in Foreclosure- January Update

January 10, 2011 financial literacy, Tenants in Foreclosure, Uncategorized No comments

Tenants in Foreclosure- January Update

Well, I feel like I should just copy and paste any of my posts from the last several months because it’s all the same. The auction date for the sale of the home I live in and rent has once again been postponed a month.

The day after Christmas my husband, daughter and I were all in the family room playing rockband and having a great time enjoying what Santa brought when I look out the window to find a strange car pulling up to the home and snapping photos. Really? You can’t take the Christmas weekend off?

The next day the landlord sent an email informing us that they are approaching the end of their modification period and the bank is doing its final review so not to be surprised if somebody comes by. I guess he didn’t realize that we’ve been living with theses monthly drive byes.

The landlord again was kind enough to again send a “friendly reminder” that the rent was due by the 5th. I had to fight by the urge to give a snide remark letting her know that the reason the rent is not being paid on the 1st as it was for a year before we fell into the situation they caused is because we have to wait and see if the home is sold. We have to spend our time calling the trustee to see if the landlord is in fact entitled to the rent.

So, I hope to have a better update soon since they are supposed to be near the end of the modification process. I really can’t fathom how this is going to work out for them since by my estimation they are about $200,000 underwater.

Tenants in Foreclosure- December Update

December 14, 2010 financial literacy, Tenants in Foreclosure, Uncategorized One comment

With this going on for eight months now, I bet you are all losing interest right? My home, which I rent, has been in foreclosure since April is never going to sell right? By now, I have no idea.

The last sale date that was given by the trustee was December 3rd. On the 5th my landlord gave me a “friendly reminder” that my rent was due. I called the trustee to find that the sale date has been postponed once again with a new sale date of January 3rd.

Quite honestly I wish the bank would just auction off the house already. If it did sell at auction then I would no longer have a rental agreement with my landlords and could quit paying them money each month. I have no idea where the money I’m sending it going and that really bothers me.

Based on the research I’ve done if the home did sell at auction the rental agreement would become void. It would be up to the bank or new owners to work out a new agreement with us. They might even offer the “cash for keys” which I’ve heard so much about and since we plan to move anyway, why shouldn’t we benefit a bit from the whole ordeal? If it did sell then how long would it take for the bank or the new owners to contact us? From what I’m hearing it’s taking quite a while for anything to be done on these foreclosed homes. So until that happened I’d have nobody that I owed rent to. Doesn’t sound like a bad deal to me!

If only it had sold at the beginning of December. That would have made for some extra funds for my Christmas shopping

The banks are changing the rules- Fees! Fees! Fees!

November 30, 2010 financial literacy, Uncategorized 2 comments

I got a notice today from my bank that the rules are changing. Though they “truly value” my business, they have to let me know that my free checking account is no longer free. There will now be a $10 a month service charge! “But wait” you say “there must be a way to get out of it”. There are some ways to get out of the monthly service fee, but unfortunately I do not qualify for any of them.

How can I avoid the $10 monthly service fee?
• Have a direct deposit of $500 or more,
• Or keep an minimum balance of $1500
• Or keep an average balance of $5000 combined in the accounts I have with them

Since I work for a small nonprofit we do not have direct deposit, though I miss the days when my paycheck would magically appear in my account. I utilize these accounts to run my rental and handle my day to day expenses and do not keep a lot of cash in them since interest rates have been averaging less than .25%.

In order to get the best of both worlds my husband and I operate our join expenses and emergency savings account out of our credit union accounts. This works out well since the branches are less conveniently located for the credit union, but we find the fees to be lower and interest rates to be higher. So we operate our daily expenses out of the more convenient bank accounts we have individually and then utilize the credit union accounts for the joint bills. The system worked great until I go this notice!

So what do I do? Do I transfer all of my accounts to the credit union in order to avoid the fee, but then have to deal with finding a branch every payday, when the rent comes or get other checks (I will be so sad to see my deposit by my phone function go)? Do I take the $10 a month hit? Do I transfer $5000 over to ensure I don’t get a fee, but then get next to nothing in interest? Do I look to see if I can get a better deal with another larger bank and hope they don’t change their practices shortly after?

Tenants in Foreclosure- Story gets national attention

November 29, 2010 financial literacy, Tenants in Foreclosure, Uncategorized No comments

My blog has now sparked interest from national media!

A couple of weeks ago I was awoken as my phone rang at 6am with an unfamiliar out of town phone number. So I did what any reasonable person would do and let the call go to voicemail. Later when I came into the office and listened to my work voicemail (yes, I transfer all of my work calls to my cell) I found a voicemail from Kelli Grant from Smart Money waiting for me.  Grant was intrigued by my story which Brent Hunsberger wrote about in the November 7th Oregonian article, Surprise! Renters in foreclosure have rights, and let me know that she wanted to include some quotes from me in her upcoming 10 things article.

After returning to my office this morning after a long holiday weekend I find a Google Alter email letting me know my name appeared in her recent article, 10 Things Your Landlord Won’t Tell You. Go figure, the #1 thing was “This building is in foreclosure.”

I have to say I love the national media attention, but do wish that it was for a different reason. Reading Grant’s article I was truly shocked to read that “Renters accounted for 40% of families facing eviction from foreclosure in 2009, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition.”

No update from me on my situation. The next scheduled date for the home I live in to be sold at auction is this Friday December 3rd. I’ll be sure to update you once I’ve called the trustee to get an update.


What do you think is happening? Do you think the home is really being modified? Is the bank just postponing the sale date for some reason to benefit them? Have the homeowners have filed bankruptcy causing the delay?

Tenants in Foreclosure- Oct 29 update

October 29, 2010 financial literacy, Tenants in Foreclosure, Uncategorized No comments

Tenants in Foreclosure- update
It’s that time of month again where I pay my bills that are due on the 1st and of them the rent is always at the top of the list. Still, when you rent a home that is in foreclosure you cannot just automatically pay it like you normally would. For the last six months I have had to deal with the uneasiness of wondering when I’m going to be asked to move out of my home because of the landlords allowing it to go into foreclosure.

As I’m getting ready to get an update on the foreclosure someone drives up to my home and stares at it out their window, writes down some notes on a clipboard and snaps a photo. I’m quite sure they were hired by the bank to see if the home was still occupied and in good repair. Still, this is a very unsettling feeling to know that someone is watching you.

So today I made my (what now has become monthly) call to the trustee to find out who is entitled to my rent payment. When I called last month they said the foreclosure was on hold and the sale date was postponed to Nov 3rd. Today…no change. So I will wait to pay the rent and call back next week after the 3rd.

November 3rd is the third date that has been listed for the home to be sold at auction. Still, I have only ever received two pieces of mail from the bank or trustee and those were both last Spring notifying me that the home was to be sold at the end of August.

The new legislations requires that a tenant is notified when I home is in foreclosure, but why isn’t it required for them to update me on the status. It would seem that if the sale date was changed the tenant who lives in the home would again need to be notified.

Why doesn’t the bank provide resources for the tenant? Why is it now my responsibility to find out if the landlord actually has a right to my rent payment?

I’ve come to dislike and feel uncomfortable in my home. Still, finding a new place to call home is proving to be just as frustrating. I’ll write about that soon.

Managing finances jointly

October 25, 2010 financial literacy, Uncategorized No comments

Managing finances jointly
Shortly after my husband and I moved in together we decided that we’d need to figure out a way for us to manage our joint bills. The struggle for us was that we had both always managed our own finances and also were the main ones who handled them in previous relationships. We are both self-proclaimed money experts and dare I say…control freaks. So with money being in the top three areas of conflict between spouses it really was something we were concerned about. So how did we make this work? Here’s how we’ve handled it:

• Maintained individual accounts
We both like maintaining our financial autonomy so we both maintained individual checking and savings accounts. We both have our paychecks deposited into our individual accounts and manage our personal budgets independently. It’s funny because we still find ourselves fighting over the bill at dinner sometimes because our money is still very much our own for these types of expenses. So if I decide to splurge and buy a purse that is way to expense, he can’t say anything because it came out of my personal funds.

We each have an investment property that we rent out so we utilize our personal savings accounts to manage the income and expenses of the rental properties.

• Opened a joint account
We felt the best way to manage the joint housing expenses and saving goals would be to open a joint checking and savings account. We added up all of the housing expenses and then divided up proportionally by the amount of income we bring in. Since we don’t make the same amount it wouldn’t be fair for us to divide the bills in half. We add all of our bills in here including his car and my student loans. We are together so we see these as joint expenses.

After decided on the process the big debate on who was going to manage the joint account? Remember, we are both self-proclaimed money experts and control freaks. Well, though my husband was quite good at managing his finances he was still in the dark ages because he balanced his account with a paper account register. Whereas, I utilized Microsoft money and had all of by transactions categorized and compared to my budget. So it was decided that I got to handle the joint accounts!

So far this process has worked great for us. We only utilize the joint account for joint expenses that we agree on. Neither one of us wants to short the joint account so usually there are many expenses that we would agree to take out of the joint funds but instead we work to pay for them out of our individual budgets. The result has been a very healthy joint account balance at all times, allowing for more money to go into the joint savings or to be spent on fun things like family vacations. Still, on the other end that does mean there are many times where our individual accounts are quite low. Luckily we get paid on different schedules so usually the other can help out when needed.

Tenants in Foreclosure- October update

October 11, 2010 financial literacy, Tenants in Foreclosure, Uncategorized No comments

Tenants in Foreclosure- Update
I decided it was bad form to keep you all hanging for another month on what is happening with the home I rent which is in foreclosure. Last I updated you all I let you know that the auction was on hold but had a sale date of October 4th (the 2nd sale date we’ve been given). I called on September 29th to see if the status had changed and it had not. I emailed the landlords to see if they had any updates, they said they did not and they were not even award of the October 4th auction date. I called again on October 1 because rent was due and it still said that it was scheduled to be auctioned at the county steps the following Monday October 4th. Well, it seemed silly to pay rent to the landlords if there was the possibility that the home would be sold in a couple of days and they would no longer own it. So I didn’t pay the rent since it technically was not considered late and accrued a late fee until October 6th.
On October 5th I got an email from the landlord reminding me that rent was due and would be late if I didn’t pay that day. I called the trustee’s automated system and found out that once again the sale date had been postponed, this time till the beginning of November. So again we wait….

Writing my annual report letter

October 3, 2010 financial literacy, managing a nonprofit, starting a nonprofit, Uncategorized No comments

Writing the annual report letter is always such a challenge. Each year I’m given one page to highlight our accomplishments for the year and talk about what’s to come. This year is even harder as I was told by my Development Director that I only get half a page this year. So here’s what I’ve got. Consider it a sneak preview of our annual report.

It’s hard to believe that we just finished our fifth year of bringing financial education to the Northwest. This is a huge milestone for us as it should be for any organization, especially in this economy. Half of new businesses do not survive more than five years, for nonprofits it’s been estimated that figure is even less with only one third hitting the monumental five year mark.

So as Financial Beginnings celebrates five years of service to our community I would like to thank all of you who helped to make this happen. Schools and community groups have welcomed us with open arms. Youth and parents who have utilized the valuable life lesson we provide. Businesses and individuals who have supported our cause by providing their time and resources. All of this support in a time when we have all been struggling.

Even though we have been doing this for five years I still feel like this is just the beginning. How can we maximize our resources and continue to serve the ever increasing demand? I think we’ve figured out the answer… partnerships. We have been working to enter into several strategic partnerships here in the Northwest which will allow us to serve more and provide more, for less.

Thank you all for your continued support. I look forward to discovering with you what the next five years will bring.

So what do you think? Am I on the right track?

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