Rent to own, with option to buy homes in Maine. Home grown owner financing on houses without a lobby ever walked through in a bank.
The question gets asked a lot like "got any threes?" in the kid's game of Fish. But the rent to own. The rent with option to buy scenario has a few sharp edges in addition to scarcity of availability in our Maine real estate housing market.
For starters, lots owner financing on Maine land happens. Couple reasons. Banks are not so peachy keen, hand stand happy to do 
land loans. Because they can not package those loans on Maine land, sell them on the secondary mortgage market. So big down payments up to forty percent, and higher interest rates than prevailing real estate numbers tacked on by the lender to make a healthy return on Maine land loans. Just the way it is, how it rolls. More on Maine land owner financing.
When an owner of a Maine home secures a mortgage, during the sign here, here and (pause) ah here, there is an acceleration clause. Wired into the lending documents that get recorded, parked at the registry of deeds for all to see. If the borrower on the Maine home loan tries to let someone assume, take over the loan or transfer title in any way to the collateral, the loan becomes due in full. Like someone in the diner screamed "check please". Or in a store "shop lifter in aisle five". Rut rho.
Besides the seller can not transfer title, if the rent to own buyer of the Maine home tried a "wrap around" installment sale contract on the house that already is saddled with a mortgage, more red flags spring up.
Along the way the payments made to the owner out of state, may not find their way in being applied to the existing mortgage. And the escrows for the monthly insurance, taxes. And if the original home owner you are renting to own from is teetering and ever so close to the end of the foreclosure movie, you the renter thinking you are the buyer are going to be wide eye and upset. When the sheffiff's serve you with a notice to bail out, move your things or we will for you and leave. They don't care where you go but you can not be here. No longer sleep down the hall on the left. In that room with the California king size bed. Matching curtains and bed spread and piled high, smothered with 
37 pillows.
The rent to buy new Maine home owner wannabe who did not go through another bank for a loan because he could not get one.
His credit is shot. He is like every prisoner in the crow bar hotel who has lots of really good reasons that explain why for sympathy and understanding. The rent with option to buy individual or couple who can not modify the terms and conditions of the existing lender's mortgage either.
The bank who has had this house on the books as delinquent for some time now. The one that just looking at the house you can not tell the third year of property taxes not being paid is coming to an end.
That the lien on the place that means the town is taking it over for lack of payment is about to detonate.
All that below the surface history on the loan that is forgotten. The mortgage not being serviced for a long long time. No check or automatic transfer paid out monthly happening. But none of this weaved into the conversation between the landlord - turned seller. And the renter who thinks he is becoming a buyer. No he is not.
None of that is mentioned, brought up. Shared with the excited "we going to buy a home when we did not think we ever could because of our horrendous credit" renter turned buyer.
Sometimes because the process of foreclosure gets murky, the parties are not attorneys. And neither landlord/seller or renter/buyer have been involved in this situation before. And for the buyer that used to be a renter to call the bank, or make the payments directly to the lender would sound an alarm. Who are you they wonder? All they have on the books is the real owner recorded at the registry of deeds. And it is not you. They never heard of you and the bad business with the foreclosure, repossession is between them and someone else with the same name as the seller. And no, they can not take partial payment on a big bill owed and rising with interest, penalties, attorney's fees because it would stop the foreclosure that is in high gear. Like a cruise missle or V2 rocket heading straight for the home the renter thought he was buying, slowly. Under the seller's shadow of ownership.
Working a short sale is not an option in this scenario above because the credit score has ten foot pole marks all over it. The debt ratios are nose bleed high and nothing is paid on time by the renter/buyer to be either. Loose as a goose. With a more ease into paying bills with we may or may not this month attitude. It all depends if something comes up we feel is more important than continuing to fund the roof over our head. Rent with 
option to buy. Rent to own your Maine home. Talk to an attorney. Make sure a real estate agent, broker is in the loop. Another banker who spills the beans, explains the same pit falls to avoid and what is really happen. How the lending game is played for high stakes, for keeps.
Maine rent to own home options...they all sound great until the bank and other creditors with all kinds of attachments on the house clear their throat. Tap their fingers impatiently on the court house desk. And say leave. Leave now. Or if the seller owns the home in Maine outright, and could finance the sale, why would he want to for thirty years and when the renter often explains my credit is not so hot. Warns them going in this is going to be trouble. Banks handled long term lending and usually the seller of this home to the renter needs to replace it. Money cashed out to buy another house so rent with option to buy is not in the cards.
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