Relatives refuse to let us refinance our home...

We have a mortgage note, with a balloon due in November 2007 on our home. The note is held by relatives who were eager to help out when I became disabled and we were bankrupt and in foreclosure.

A year ago I tried to refinance the home but they would not send the mortgage buyout information I needed to lenders. Lenders finally gave up. At this time I again have an interested lender, and again they are refusing to send the mortgage buyout information.

(Because of disability and loss of income payments haven't been made since 2004). I've kept copies of all my correspondence to them relating to Social Security Disability filings, insurance delays, financial holes that have plagued us since my disabilty. Things are finally starting to turn around and we want to refinance our house to get it out of my relatives control.

Since issuing the mortgage they have not corresponded, called, or emailed me about the payments. Thankfully they have not called in the note. But they won't sign off on it either - even though it means repaying them their money.

I can't understand it. When I've called to plead for their cooperation they've hung up on me (it's a family trust fund-I'm not a shareholder). They don't like the interest terms I've been offered. But they won't refinance the note either to include our car payment. If they would refinance the note as we need it we could pay them.

Supposedly the matter has been turned over to the family's new attorney, who remains unknown. All I need is a payoff amount and a per-deim to refinance.

Do I have any legal recourse to force this issue? We built the house in late 1999 and they took up the mortgage in November of 2002. I'm at wits end trying to find any legal data to use to get around this problem.

You may need an attorney to send them a Strongly Worded Letter, which may scare them into coughing up the information.

I suppose they have the right to hold on to a mortgage if they want to, although why they would want a precarious note, and not cash in hand, is totally beyond me. Did you know they were clinically insane before you signed anything with them? (kidding!)

If payments haven't been made since 2004, and they have been making the payments for you, they may just want to be repaid for the interest and principal they have been paying for the last 3 years along with the balance of the mortgage. Now after 3 years of not paying you want them to refinance the home to include the car payment? The only way I would do this is if the total loan would be taken out of my name and all past due amounts were repaid to me at close. Look at this from their point of view, would you be a good credit risk? Maybe if you offered to pay all the debt that they incurred and paid with this loan they would be more eager to respond and work with you. Just my two cents.