Release Your Guilt About Staying in Your Home During Foreclosure

If you are beyond home of loan modification and somewhere in the process of foreclosure, you may be dealing with some guilt with regards to staying in the home without making any payments to the bank. After all, most of us have been raised with some sort of moral philosophy that requires paying for what we use. When you know that you're pretty much guaranteed to be losing the property, staying can lead to some very conflicted and stressful feelings. All that said, you should take heart in realizing that by staying in the home for as long as possible, you are actually doing a good deed for your neighbors, and even for the bank!

First off, consider the obvious benefits to your own situation if you decide to stay in the home. With a bit of self-restraint, you can use this period of time as an excellent opportunity to save. If you are past the point of no return with your home and have determined that you're going to give it up, it would be a really good idea to open a savings account, specifically for the purpose of laying funds aside for when you need to leave the home and stay somewhere else. Assuming you have some extra income to do this, the extra savings will give you a good deal more peace of mind as you consider your options for moving on.

Secondly, your neighbors would most likely rather have you in the home than allowing the home to be abandoned and left derelict. You've surely seen neighborhoods where homes have been left unoccupied. Lawns are overgrown with weeds, and left brown from lack of watering. Fliers pile up at the front door. The lack of occupants attracts vandals and looters in some areas. And the result is that property values of everything around the home plummet accordingly. It makes much more sense to have someone in the home for as long as possible and avoid its general degradation, and since you're already there, you make the most viable candidate.

Finally, consider the bank's position here. First of all, the bank REALLY doesn't want to have to deal with a foreclosure on your property in the first place. As long as you're there, there is at least some chance that you may be able to work out a solution with the bank to stay in the home. Of course, the more time that goes by without making payments the less likely that is, but there still is a chance. Additionally, staying in the home benefits the bank for the same reason it benefits your neighbors: you keep the property from devolving into a derelict with far less value than it would have with you in it.

While the foreclosure process can conjure up all kinds of emotions - fear, uncertainty, depression, anger and more - guilt should not be among the emotions that you allow yourself to experience, at least not a feeling of guilt for staying in the home while you work through the process. Remaining in the home provides you an opportunity to save funds for moving on to the next phase of your life, and also offers numerous benefits to those who own property around the home, and also to the lender. So if you find yourself slipping into a guilty stupor, be sure to remind yourself that not only are you acting in your own best interests, but the best interests of everyone involved.Nick writes for the ForeclosureFish website, which has been created to give meaningful financial advice to homeowners and debtors who are facing economic difficulties. In over 1,000 articles published since 2006, the site has covered such topics as foreclosure, general legal information, bankruptcy, personal finance, and more. Visit the site to read more about credit and mortgages, including how to escape from Chexsystems and how mortgage modification works. You can also download a free e-book explaining the basics of foreclosure, and your options for getting through it: http://www.foreclosurefish.com/