More accounts of the personal side of the foreclosure business appear in this story at Bloomberg in which more families live in their homes for years without paying their mortgage or being evicted. The one guy who owes about $185K on a house that was once worth $200,000 (but would now fetch only $66K) hasn’t made a payment since mid-2007.

Comedian Lynn Moore and her husband, retired pro wrestler “Cougar Jay,” were on the verge of losing their St. Augustine, Florida, home when PNC Financial Services Group Inc.’s foreclosure hearing was canceled last month.

Moore, who runs a comedy club under the stage name Jackie Knight, and her husband, whose real name is Dion, last made a mortgage payment in mid-2009. She said they need to stay put until at least January, when Dion, 50, expects to receive a federal education grant they can use to rent a new home.

They are among the hundreds of thousands of Americans who dwell in the limbo between homeownership and eviction as banks and courts sort through foreclosure cases. Questions over the legitimacy of mortgage documents used by banks such as Wells Fargo & Co. and Bank of America Corp. have triggered litigation nationwide. As a result, foreclosure proceedings have been delayed, buying time for homeowners in default.

“If they tell me I have to be out before then, I’m going to be in big trouble,” said Moore, 63, who has faced foreclosure since March and tried to negotiate lower payments. “I’m going to have no money and no place to go.”

The delays mean people like Moore, who inherited her mother’s house and the $2,200-a-month mortgage payments that came with it, are lingering in their homes for free and longer than would be possible otherwise, in some cases for years, as lawsuits drag on.

Things were so much simpler when home prices rose at about the rate of inflation and banks wouldn’t lend you money they didn’t think you could pay back out of your income.