Chapter 13 standoff thwarts foreclosure on St. Petersburg house for years [Tampa Bay Area]
With the economy tumbling, thousands of Floridians have filed bankruptcies in a last-ditch bid to keep their homes from foreclosure.
Among them was 55-year-old Rose King. In the end, she was unable to save her home, but it certainly wasn’t for lack of trying.
Between 1999 and last January, King filed for Chapter 13 bankruptcy protection eight times — a move that kept lenders from forcing the sale of her St. Petersburg bungalow. And when she finally moved out in March, she took everything, including the kitchen sink.
“She lived two years for free, I can tell you that,” says Kelly Goff, who held the most recent mortgage and had to schedule foreclosure sales four times. “I’ve never had anything like it, and I’ve had hundreds of loans. It’s luck of the draw that I happened to get somebody who knew how to abuse the system and used it.”