loan to a relative .

[James Jordan]

hi all my first post have been looking a while to , so much to learn here and i am looking for some help , here goes stupid really but i lent $110,000 to a relative who is an active realator for six months at 5% that was over 2.5 years ago , and no repayment and it gets worse , i now know they are underwater on there home by 200,000 or so and i am also aware that there is also a second mortgage which may be a private deal, bank is in court trying to get possesion , there are also other debts which debt collectors are trying to collect so a pretty big mass they are in , and i am also in , we have had lots of promises etc , the property is a farm and the mortgage is against the house , barn and 8 acres , my loan has been secured against 27 acres of farmland [horses] and i am told had a 2009 valuation of $175.000, this land has no mortgage , but it also has no road acces , only access is through the farm , but i am told there is a local law of access granted through continued usage , as you can see i am thinking worse case scenario now , long first post sorry . jim

[Jon Holdman]

Welcome to BiggerPockets, James Jordan. You should post an intro in the new member intro forum.

Is there a question in there? I've read it twice and don't see one. If you're wondering what you can do to take possession of the property, the answer is to foreclose. Is the property you hold the mortgage against a specific, identified parcel? Or part of some other parcel? In either case, you need to do a title search to find out where you stand. Who's senior to you and you's behind you. You mention a second, which I assume is behind you. But then you say the bank is trying to get possession. What's the actual situation?

If you're in second or later position and the liens in front of you total more than the value of the property you will very likely suffer a total loss. You may be able to sue the borrower, but with what else you wrote, this doesn't seem likely to get you any money.

I'd strongly recommend discussing the situation with a lawyer in your area who's familiar with foreclosure procedures (regarding whether or not to try to foreclose, and what might happen if someone else does.) and with real estate law (regarding the access situation.)

Also, you post would be much easier to read if you used proper capitalization and punctuation. I hate to complain about stuff like this, but your post is very hard to read and understand.