Can You Live in a Bank Owned Home?

Unfortunately, the answer to this question is generally “no.” When a bank repossesses your home, they are doing so in order to sell it in order to pay back some of your debts. If you are living in the home, it is harder for the bank to sell your home or put it up for auction.

The reason banks cannot accept rent as payment is because they do not have any proof that you will pay that rent, much in the same way you did not pay back the loan. And the bank will not let you live in the place for free because if they do not sell the home they are not making back the money you owe them.

What Can You Do?

First of all, ask the bank if you can sell the home yourself, or contact someone to put the repossession on hold in order to get the money to pay back the loan so that you are no longer defaulting on it. Selling the home yourself is almost guaranteed to get you more money for the home than if the bank sells it, since their only goal is to sell it as quickly as possible, while your goal will be to get as much money back as you can (possibly enough to help you pay rent on an apartment and not be homeless).

There are some help lines you can contact in order to see if they will put the repossession on hold, and there are certain courts that will hold onto the home’s sale if you can prove you will be able to pay back the loan after a few months. But if the bank has repossessed your home and you do nothing, you cannot live in the home because the bank needs to be able to sell the home, and your living there will make that far more difficult.