Student Loan Help

As the hands of time march on, each of us become wiser; at least that’s the hope. We try our best to learn from past mistakes and accept valuable advice from family and friends who have traveled down that dirt road before us. Still, some lessons we just need to learn the hard way. I have had once such lesson I would like to share with you in hopes that you will not suffer the same fate.

I entered into a business venture with my father-in-law in 2006 and got burned badly. In this instance I am the one who traveled down that dirt road and got covered in mud when the dust cleared.

He and I bought a condo together in Naples, FL in 2006. As he was located right in Naples he took care of drafting the tenant lease (we had a tenant already in there), taking care of condo maintenance, and paying the mortgage. I basically served as the silent financial partner from Boston during this time. Everything was going well, or so I thought.

Now it’s important to note that the tenants rent was covering both the mortgage and condo fees so I was not required to send down any money. It seemed to be a perfect scenario, that is, until my place of employment was called for employment verification. What I didn’t know is that my father-in-law had experience financial hardship and was paying other bills with the tenant’s money while letting our property fall deeper and deeper into debt. In November of 2006 I discovered no payments had been made since June!

This episode damaged my credit by 75 points. Also, to compound the problem, I had to pay $6,200 to get the property out of foreclosure status. Half the money went to past due mortgage payments while the other half went to attorney fees. This was a hard life lesson learned for me. I thought I could trust my wife’s father. The man even contributed $10,000 toward our wedding. He would never do anything to harm his little girl or her husband, right? WRONG!

Here is my advice to you. If you ever enter a business venture with anyone open an online account to keep tabs on things or call customer service once per month to confirm your account is in good standing. Of course, you could also be the one who pays the bills (which I am currently doing) to make sure it gets done in a timely manner. Finally, you may consider a credit service like one of my friends to give you monthly credit alerts should anything negative hit (a monthly fee is involved). That way you will have the information in hand immediately.

Learn from me my friends. Here we are two years later and I’m still trying to get the mud off my jeans. I’ve already tried Tide, Wisk, ERA, Extra, Arm & Hammer, and Shout to no avail. Perhaps with time it will fade, but it will always be there.