Private mortgage - holder wants to assign

[jaded]

I have a private mortgage through the former owner. She has been a major pain since her husband died and left her in financial trouble. Now she wants to sell my mortgage, which she has had trouble doing due to my poor credit rating (due to hospital bills). I have suddenly gotten a letter from her attorney (her THIRD attorney, btw), which attaches an estoppel certificate for assigning the mortgage. The thing is, I have never heard anything about this previously, and don't even know who or what this person/company is that it is being assigned to. Evidently, the company needs this estoppel to complete the transaction, probably because of my credit. Can they force me to sign this? I'm perfectly happy with things the way they are. I don't want to go into a mortgage situation with one of those places that will screw me over. I cannot refinance at this time.

The letter states that if I don't sign, the assignment cannot go through.

[aprazma]

Did you sign any document with her when you signed the note for the private mortgage about being willing to cooperate if she would resell the note? (Usually when you sign a note for an institutional lender, you are also asked to explicitly sign another document (Letter of Cooperation) stating that you will cooperate with paperwork required to resell the note.)

If not, I wouldn't help or sign that document without any consideration. Signing it seems to benefit one party only, and you didn't originally agree to help her resell the note as a condition of your original note. I do not think they can force you to sign, unless you agreed in writing to do so (cooperate) at the time of the original note. Even in that case, the worst they could do is to take you to court for an injunction to sign because there is a cooperate clause.

This is not legal advice. Consult an attorney.

[jaded]

No, I did not sign any such document. She has just been telling me for about three years that she wants to sell the mortgage.

I'm thinking that it will cost her more to take it to court than she can afford, so maybe she'll leave me alone. I surely hope so.