About a year ago my family experienced a horrible financial hardship when I lost my job. We also lost our home in foreclosure during this time as well. When we were in good standing thoguh we had a 10K dollar home equity line that we had used to "fix up" the home. This was a secured debt tied to our home as is customary. When the house went into foreclosure, the bank that issued the home equity line was only paid 1500.00 by the first mortgage holder instead of the full 10K. Why this happened I have no idea, since the contract verbage states that if I default they take possession of my home and can go as far as auctioning it off if need be to collect.

Recently I have been receiving calls from the bank that issued the home equity line want to set up payment arrangements with me to pay this debt off. We do not have the money to amke these payemtns since my current position literally pays 40% less than I was amking prior to my job loss. The bank has also threatend to file a judgement against me and possibly garnish my wages. My question is this: If the debt was secured with my home, and the bank did not collect when the house was sold/ went into foreclosure thne what rights do they have to file a judgement or even try to collect? IN other words can they actually sue me or are they simply trying to get me to sign off on an "unsecured" loan so that they can actually hold that document over my head??? ( this option is on the table at present) Please help…. we are in a desperate finacial time already and surely can’t afford to pay any more than we already are. It is a struggle just to "eat" and pay the utility bills not to mention a 250.00 loan payment.

Thanks-
The home was located in Mississippi