Echt krass: wenn Häuser immer weniger wert werden und eine Versteigerung ansteht, dann ist die Differenz von aufgenommenen Schulden und Restwert des Hauses zu versteuern und zwar für die Leute, die diese Immobilie nicht selbst genutzt haben...
Lose Homes, Pay More Tax
By JONATHAN GLATER
Published: May 30, 2008
Some of the biggest losers in the real estate slump are not purchasers of mansions they could not afford. They are buyers of second homes — or third ones, for that matter — who are sitting on a tax time bomb.
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Jim Wilson/The New York Times
Many of these people will lose their properties in foreclosure and then stagger into bankruptcy under the weight of a sizable tax bill. While Congress has granted some tax relief to people who lose their primary homes, there is no such aid for those who fall behind on payments on a getaway condo in Las Vegas, a retirement home on the Florida coast or an old house that they are renting out for income.
Bankruptcy lawyers say they are seeing a wave of foreclosures among owners of second homes in such a position, owners who thought they had found sound advice for financial security.
Two years ago, Lilia Garcia and her husband, Jesus, bought their dream house in Linden, Calif., for $535,000 and financed it in part by taking out a bigger loan backed by their previous house in nearby Stockton. They decided to hang onto the Stockton house and rent it out, believing that it would more than pay for itself and could be sold years in the future to help pay for college for their two children.
“We wanted to make it an investment,” Ms. Garcia said. “I should’ve sold it.”
But the Garcias, who earn about $65,000 a year, fell behind on their payments after their tenant moved out and the interest rate on their mortgage rose, bringing their monthly payments on the rental home to nearly $2,700 a month, from less than $1,000. They view foreclosure as inevitable; they have not paid the mortgages on either house for months and now rent a home in Linden.
Then they discovered that they could expect a painful tax on the rental house.
Like many others, the Garcias borrowed more than their homes are now worth. The difference between the amount they borrowed and the rental home’s sale price in foreclosure will ultimately be considered taxable income as forgiven debt.
If the rental house sells for $160,000, which is about what they paid for it in 2003, they may still owe tax on $120,000 — the difference between the sale price and the $280,000 they borrowed against it over the years. That could mean a tax bill of more than $30,000.
“I just thought we would file for bankruptcy and everything would be clear. We’d start all over again,” said Ms. Garcia, who is a medical assistant in a doctor’s office in Stockton. Now she and her husband are waiting to see what price the house brings before seeking bankruptcy. “It’s bad.”
J. Scott Bovitz, a bankruptcy lawyer in Los Angeles, says the problem is widespread. “I’ve seen people not just buying properties to live in, they’re buying properties to become mini-Donald Trumps.”
Even if the condition of the economy generally improves, borrowers will face the double problem of foreclosure and then taxes, unless home prices begin to climb rapidly. And no one sees that as likely.
“My suspicion is most lawyers, even bankruptcy lawyers, aren’t focused on this issue,” said Charles Hastings, a bankruptcy lawyer in Stockton who is advising the Garcias on the tax ramifications.
Congress, deciding the tax impact was just too much for the nation’s already distressed homeowners, passed limited relief at the end of last year. Under the Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Act, which is effective from Jan. 1, 2007, through Dec. 31, 2009, a homeowner does not have to pay tax on debt forgiven by a lender — if the loan is backed by the property the homeowner lives in.
The boom in real estate in recent years prompted a great many people — though no one seems to know exactly how many — to jump into the market with additional real estate. Some did so a few times, buying multiple properties with the hope of selling them for a quick profit. Several bankruptcy lawyers, who say they are busier than ever, compare the real estate frenzy of recent years to the California gold rush of the 1850s.
According to the National Association of Realtors, there are about 7.5 million vacation homes in the country, about 10 percent of the number of owner-occupied homes. According to the association, from 2002 to 2007, the number of vacation homes rose 18 percent, more than three times the growth in the number of owner-occupied homes and the growth in investor-owned units.
The financial distress wrought by ownership of second homes and investment properties is hard to quantify but significant, according to the association. It ripples through markets that have a lot of second homes as the full-time residents there find their home values falling in tandem.
While 60 percent of the foreclosures in Las Vegas last year involved properties held by nonresidents, in the first three months of this year the proportion has reversed: 60 percent involve owner-occupied houses, according to Applied Analysis, an economic and fiscal policy research firm in Nevada.
“Investors are easy in and easier out, and who’s left holding the bag are the individual homeowners,” said Jeremy Aguero, principal analyst at the company.
Buyers of second homes seem to have thought that if they did not borrow against these homes, they were wasting equity, said Cathleen C. Moran, a bankruptcy lawyer in Mountain View, Calif. “It comes from looking at your house as a piggy bank,” Ms. Moran said. People borrowed against homes without realizing that the debts would become “a bombshell that’s going to go off under you at some point,” she said.
For owners with a potential tax bill, there is one way to minimize the damage. Alan J. Fisher, a bankruptcy lawyer in Boca Raton, Fla., said that negotiating with a lender could prove beneficial. In one of his cases, he said, a lender agreed that foreclosure “fully satisfies all obligations under the loan.” With that statement, he hoped, there would be no outstanding unpaid debt reported by the bank that the Internal Revenue Service could treat as income.
But Mr. Fisher said he was not sure how the tactic would hold up in court. “I sure don’t want to be the one litigating it.”
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