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Short Sale Deficiencies & Tax Issues | Asheville Real Estate

Steve Wilde | 837 Views | 01/26/2015

Welcome back to Short Sales Gone Wild. Today we’re going to talk about deficiencies. Spoiler alert, you get deficiencies waived, there’s going to be a tax issue, and we’ll talk about that too. What’s a deficiency? That’s the difference between what we’re giving the bank and what we owe the bank. So that’s the difference, the deficiency, the amount that you are short on your loan. And that’s going to include real estate commission, taxes, tax stamps, the difference between what you owe and the offer price. So all of that added up is the deficiency.

Short Sale Deficiency

So what are they going to do with that deficiency? At the end of the day, at the end of the short sale, what are they doing to do? Are they going to waive it? Are they going to forgive that debt? Well there are three options, and that’s the number one option, waiving the deficiency. That’s what we want and you’re usually going to get that with Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the VA, FHA, the government type loans. You drop down to tier two banks, tier three banks, credit unions, they don’t have the ability to just forgive the debt. So what are they going to do? Well they’re going to ask for a Promissory Note.

Promissory Note

A Promissory Note usually the terms are zero or very low interest over seven to ten years. It’s a Promissory Note, I promise to pay you $20,000 over the next seven to ten years. It’s unsecured because the property is gone. Number three, a cash contribution, sometimes you’re even going to get a cash contribution and a Promissory Note. A cash contribution just means that the seller brings cash to closing on top of the short sale, maybe $5,000 even $10,000, maybe even more if it’s a huge deficiency. But those are the three options that we’re going to be dealing with in a short sale. What happens if they waive that deficiency? Let’s say we have a $30,000 waiver of deficiency. That’s great, rock on, but guess what? Now we have a tax issue because as far as the IRS is concerned, forgiveness of debt is a taxable event. So the seller has to count on receiving a 1099 for whatever debt is forgiven. They got the use of that money and now they don’t have to pay it back, that’s a taxable event. Now this is a CPA or a tax attorney question. Do not give tax advice. I’m not a tax attorney, I don’t give tax advice. I’ll give them some information and send everybody to their CPA or their tax attorney because it’s going to be their problem to deal with, get them involved now. But the CPA’s going to attack it a couple of different ways. They’re going to look at how much their loss is. Maybe they have a $40,000 loss and a $30,000 deficiency. Well they’ll probably be able to make that go away or mitigate that to some extent. They can also look at the IRS insolvency test. Again, this is for them to deal with. So just advise them that there is a taxable event, you will receive a 1099 for any debt forgiven, and send them to their CPA. And go get some more short sales.

Well partner, I’ll tell you this. I sure as hell would never try to lasso a short sale without my buddy Steve. Short sales you say, I don’t really know this short sales, but you look marvelous doing these short sales things and I want to do one because it looks marvelous. You look marvelous doing them, so I want to do them. I want to do a short sale.

By: Steve Wilde

Short Sale Deficiencies & Tax Issues | Asheville Real Estate

Welcome back to Short Sales Gone Wild. Today we’re going to talk about deficiencies. Spoiler alert, you get deficiencies waived, there’s going to be a tax issue, and we’ll talk about that too. What’s a deficiency? That’s the difference between what we’re giving the bank and what we owe the bank. So that’s the difference, the deficiency, the amount that you are short on your loan. And that’s going to include real estate commission, taxes, tax stamps, the difference between what you owe and the offer price. So all of that added up is the deficiency.

Short Sale Deficiency

So what are they going to do with that deficiency? At the end of the day, at the end of the short sale, what are they doing to do? Are they going to waive it? Are they going to forgive that debt? Well there are three options, and that’s the number one option, waiving the deficiency. That’s what we want and you’re usually going to get that with Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the VA, FHA, the government type loans. You drop down to tier two banks, tier three banks, credit unions, they don’t have the ability to just forgive the debt. So what are they going to do? Well they’re going to ask for a Promissory Note.

Promissory Note

A Promissory Note usually the terms are zero or very low interest over seven to ten years. It’s a Promissory Note, I promise to pay you $20,000 over the next seven to ten years. It’s unsecured because the property is gone. Number three, a cash contribution, sometimes you’re even going to get a cash contribution and a Promissory Note. A cash contribution just means that the seller brings cash to closing on top of the short sale, maybe $5,000 even $10,000, maybe even more if it’s a huge deficiency. But those are the three options that we’re going to be dealing with in a short sale. What happens if they waive that deficiency? Let’s say we have a $30,000 waiver of deficiency. That’s great, rock on, but guess what? Now we have a tax issue because as far as the IRS is concerned, forgiveness of debt is a taxable event. So the seller has to count on receiving a 1099 for whatever debt is forgiven. They got the use of that money and now they don’t have to pay it back, that’s a taxable event. Now this is a CPA or a tax attorney question. Do not give tax advice. I’m not a tax attorney, I don’t give tax advice. I’ll give them some information and send everybody to their CPA or their tax attorney because it’s going to be their problem to deal with, get them involved now. But the CPA’s going to attack it a couple of different ways. They’re going to look at how much their loss is. Maybe they have a $40,000 loss and a $30,000 deficiency. Well they’ll probably be able to make that go away or mitigate that to some extent. They can also look at the IRS insolvency test. Again, this is for them to deal with. So just advise them that there is a taxable event, you will receive a 1099 for any debt forgiven, and send them to their CPA. And go get some more short sales.

Well partner, I’ll tell you this. I sure as hell would never try to lasso a short sale without my buddy Steve. Short sales you say, I don’t really know this short sales, but you look marvelous doing these short sales things and I want to do one because it looks marvelous. You look marvelous doing them, so I want to do them. I want to do a short sale.

By: Steve Wilde