The bank can go after the former owners for the rest of their lives and try (probably unsuccessfully) to get the $ from their heirs as well. Unless of course, they file Chapter 7 (which is virtually impossible to do these days). If they file Chapter 11 then the former owners will be paying the bank back for any remainder after a sale or auction for the rest of their lives without the benefit of living in it.



>>Terry,
>>
>>>It seems the bank put the house up for auction, presumably to recoup their loan. Maybe it was going so cheap that they thought they mi's well buy it (auctioneered sometimes to that - I think they call it "commission bidding" or summat) and keep it till it can make money for them.
>>
>>I don't know what laws apply in this situation, but there could be cases where if the auction price was not enough to cover the outstanding loan the bank could still go after the (former) owner to recover the balance. In this case it would make sense for the bank to buy it cheap so they would have more options for recovering their money (fix up the house and sell it on the open market, chase the owner for additional money, write off the balance as a loss then sell the house for profit, etc)
>
>That's more or less what I've been saying, David, excpet the bit about chasing the (ex) owners (who've probably committed suidiced :-)