Question: After our marriage, my husband was approved for a home loan in which he is the only borrower. After finding the house, my husband wanted to have my name on the title also, but the lender wanted me to submit my passport and permanent resident card (I'm not a citizen yet). However, my passport was expired because it has not been used since I had a permanent resident card. I need to wait for a passport renewal.

What should we do now?

Answer: Did the home purchase go through? If yes, your husband likely has the right to add your name to the title without lender approval. The Garn-St. Germain Act says a lender cannot call a loan when there is "a transfer where the spouse or children of the borrower become an owner of the property."

If your husband is a U.S. citizen, do you even need a passport from another country or a permanent resident card? Have you been married for at least two years ? If yes, does your marriage impact your citizenship status? Please contact a legal clinic or attorney for specifics.

Question: I'm considering the purchase a home I cannot afford. At this time, I can afford around $60,000 -- basically a mobile home that's in need of repair. The house that I want is $219,000. I do not know if either choice is acceptable. I obviously do not want to live at either choice for very long (no more than three years). Housing is very expensive where I live. Should I take the plunge and get in the game now, or should I save up money and do things the "traditional way."

Answer: There is no choice. You cannot buy a property which is three times beyond what you can afford. No legitimate lender will provide financing. Such a purchase has a huge chance of leading to foreclosure and bankruptcy. Even if you can make the mortgage payments, what about taxes, utilities and repairs?

What you should do is to work at saving more and increasing your income. Also, spend more time learning about real estate in general as well as the specific trends in your local community.

No less important, buying a home with the intent of selling in three years is likely to be a disaster. It costs money to acquire real estate and money to sell, so even if you get a higher price you could have an actual cash loss on the sale.

Question: We purchased our home in 1985, and lived in it for next 14 years without any interruptions. In 1999 one spouse and both children moved to an apartment in another city 250 miles away on a temporary job assignment.

Starting at some point in 2000 the entire family stayed at the apartment about 90 percent of each year. At that point we registered to vote in city where we maintained an apartment.

At no time have we ever rented out the house to anybody, and nobody other than us has used this home in all of these years. It remains furnished with our furniture, and is full of our personal stuff. We even keep a car there. We had the phone disconnected around 2002.

From reading the regulations, this house -- the only dwelling of any kind that we own -- appears no longer to be our principal residence. Is that correct?

Answer: Yes. Generally, you must have lived in a home for two of the past five years to qualify for the prime residence capital gains write-off. What happened before 2001 doesn't count.

For situations such as yours, you need to look at the specific rules. The IRS says "to exclude gain, a taxpayer must both own and use the home as a principal residence for two of the five years before the sale. The ownership and use periods need not be concurrent. The two years may consist of 24 full months or 730 days. Short absences, such as for a summer vacation, count as periods of use, but longer breaks, such as a one-year sabbatical, do not. The taxpayer also must not have excluded gain on another home sold during the two years before the current sale."

If you used the apartment for 90 percent of the time since 2000, it would mean you used the house 10 percent of the time, or about 36 days a year. Over five years, you have used the property as a residence for roughly 180 days -- not close to the 730-day standard. For details, please see a tax professional.

If plausible, you may want to consider moving back to the house for the requisite period to qualify for the capital gains write-off.

Question: I purchased a condo in 2003 for $43,900 and I wasn't told anything about what I was purchasing.

Included in my loan documents was a clause stating that my loan could not be paid in full and if paid in full I would be responsible for the entire balance of the loan, I never paid any attention to this until when I decided to refinance and was told that my mortgage company gave a pay off amount of $170,000. What can be done about this?

Answer: All loans must be paid in full when a home is sold unless otherwise agreed with the lender. However, a pay-off balance of $170,000 for a home with a $43,900 purchase price does not make sense. Do you mean you put down $43,900 and the purchase price was higher? There is something here which is not clear.

Please speak with a local lender for assistance. If the purchase price was $43,900 then ask if the pay-off number is correct. Call your state attorney general and ask to speak with their consumer affairs division for assistance if a mistake cannot be resolved. Also, are you saying the loan papers require you to keep the mortgage for the entire loan term, say 30 years? If that's the case, ask the state attorney general if such a requirement is allowable in your jurisdiction.

Question: I'm concerned about my parents -- they helped my husband and I purchase a house by putting down $91,000. A year later they put us on title and we pay the monthly mortgage. They also bought a condo as an investment and allowed my younger sister to rent it. They basically sold a condo prior to both these purchases and bought these properties with the proceeds of that old condo on a 1031 exchange basis.

Meanwhile, I have another sister who lives in my parent's home -- she was sort of counting on the sale of that condo so that they could help her get into a property too -- as another 1031 exchange.

One thing that's secure is another condo they own in a high-rise new building -- it's nice and they rent it out for $2,200 to a non-family member.

Both their home and my sister's condo are on a neg-am mortgage -- this is scary to me, especially if something happens to them! Should I be concerned?

Answer: Yes. Your parents are certainly generous and that is to be admired. That said, the idea of a 1031 exchange is to trade a property used in business or trade for another property used in business and trade and, in the process, defer capital gains taxes.

There are several issues raised by your situation. Is an exchanged property rented to a family member acceptable under the 1031 program? Are your parents getting a fair market rent for the rental condo? If you got $91,000 for a down payment and are now on the title of your condo, have your parents given you a taxable gift or one which impacts estate financing?

As to a negative amortization loan, that mortgage will need to be repaid or property will need to be sold at some point. If your parents must sell a property, what taxes will they owe? Can they qualify for different financing?

Please have your parents consult with a tax professional and a lender.

Question: Can a builder charge an administration fee for not selecting their preferred lender? I'm in the process of purchasing a new home but the builder is going to charge me $3,000 if I switch to a different lender.

Answer: By any chance did you make a trade with the builder, accept some sort of discount or upgrade? If yes, in exchange did you agree to use a lender named by the builder? If this is the situation you can't both get a benefit and not engage the builder's lender.

Question: I have a property out of state that a property management looks after. I have addressed several questions to him and don't get answers. Can I send a questionnaire to the current tenants so I can have him rated?

Answer: You're the owner. Once the management agreement ends you can get another manager if the current broker is unsatisfactory to you.

As to a tenant questionnaire, rather than rate the manager why not ask what they think of the property? For instance, are repairs promptly made? Are there any safety concerns? Do they know who to contact in an emergency? Etc.

Question: My home is a duplex, two bedrooms each for each unit, and valued at $415,000. The outstanding loan balance is $260,000 at 6.5 percent.

I know I can rent both units and the house will pay for itself. We can then buy another house. But I wonder whether the market will sustain such high-priced homes or will they come down soon? My husband is expecting a crash because of the many people he personally knows who have purchased their homes with zero down, interest-only balloon payment kind of loans. I tell him that the crash will not happen.

Am I correct? Should I buy now?

Answer: The magic question with stocks, bonds and real estate is what will happen next. No matter which fortune teller or stock analyst you consult, no one knows what will happen in the future.

For some sense of what's happening, you need to look at your local market and mortgage rates. Is the local population growing? The job base? Are builders keeping up with demand or is the area over-built?

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