Sure, it sounds simple: just walk away from you home and leave your worries behind. But there are lots of things to actually plan and think about before you walk away from your mortgage, your home and everything you know. You will have larger decisions to make than “Should I leave the keys in the door or should I mail them back to the mortgage company?”

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Once you decide to stop paying the mortgage and leave your home, you don’t immediately have to run out the door. You actually have a lot of work to do as you prepare for your eventual foreclosure and possible bankruptcy. And make no mistake about it: if you stop paying your mortgage then both scenarios are very likely. The decision to purposely walk away from your home and your mortgage is called a “strategic default” and it is being done by more and more people when they find that they are severely underwater with their mortgage.

Generally, once you decide to leave your home and stop paying your mortgage you should not immediately move out. Instead, you should do a number of things while you continue to live in your home. And be forewarned that with the record number of people walking away from their homes it is becoming more and more common to have a long waiting period between the time you actually stop paying your mortgage to the time when you are eventually evicted or kicked out of your home. Some mortgage lenders are taking one or two years or more before they even send out a default notice. Banks know that as long as someone is still in the home then the home still has value and could, potentially, lead to payments being received in the future. Some banks are even deciding that it’s “too costly” to go after people who have stopping paying their mortgage for the time being and are literally allow people to live completely mortgage and rent free until they figure out how to handle the problem.

The important lesson here is: you will have some time, maybe months, maybe years, before you are actually kicked out of your house. Evictions don’t happen in the middle of the night anymore. You will more than likely get plenty of notice before you have to leave, so you might as well put that time to some good use. Here are some of the things to think about when it comes to leaving your home for the bank:

Make Sure you Need to Go: This sounds like a no-brainer, but you may actually have some options available to you that could keep you in your home. The first step is to make sure you really need to leave your house or if you can actually work with your bank to modify your mortgage. You may be able to short sell your home and actually make a little money out of the deal, so don’t immediately assume that you have to take a total loss on your house. If you come to the conclusion that walking away from your house and leaving the keys in the door is your best option, then you’ll have other things to plan for before you go.

Speak With A Lawyer: Talking to an attorney in cases where you have to break a contract with a bank is always a good idea. Yes, it may cost you a little bit of money, but it may be substantially less than the $1,000 a for-profit service like http://www.youwalkaway.com/ may charge and you’ll want to be sure that you’re doing things correctly and that you aren’t leaving yourself open for lawsuits or other legal troubles down the line. Different states handle home foreclosures and abandonments differently, and an experience attorney should be able to answer any specific questions you have about how the bank will proceed into its foreclosure and whether or not you’ll have to claim bankruptcy or not.

Notify Your Bank: This step may depend upon the advice you get from your attorney, but many lawyers recommend notifying the bank and informing them of your intent to stop paying your mortgage. This step alone can sometimes be beneficial when working with a bank to modify a home loan. A lot of banks and mortgage companies are so backlogged with loan defaults that they purposely make the decision to only work with the “most severe” cases where they stand a chance of losing the most money. By telling your bank that you’ll be walking away from the loan they have a much larger incentive to work with you: if they don’t then they won’t receive any more payments from you.

Find A Place To Live: Leaving your home is rough, but finding an adequate place to live can be even more difficult. You will want to try to work out something in advance of your house being foreclosed on. You can arrange to live with a friend or relative or you can rent a place of your own. You may even be able to buy a smaller home, depending upon your financial situation. It’s very important that you make living arrangements before you actually leave your home because once you do there’s a good chance that a foreclosure or bankruptcy will damage your credit rating for years. With a poor credit score you may have a difficult time actually finding a place to rent or live because many landlords check credit histories before allowing people to sign a lease.

Save Money and Pay Bills: Just because you’re not paying your mortgage doesn’t mean that you should not pay any bills at all. In fact, you should be using that money that would normally go to your mortgage payment to “clean up” any outstanding debt you might have and get yourself on more stable financial footing. You should try to put away as much money as possible because you’ll eventually need that money when it comes time to rent or buy another home. Likewise, you’ll need money for moving expenses and other expenses which may arise. The idea of leaving your home is a scary one, but it’s also a decision that should be done for financial gain. You should not go on a spending spree for things you don’t need. Instead you should be doing everything you can to “start over” and get yourself into a better financial standing build reducing your debt and building a cushion of savings as a “rainy day” fund. Likewise, going on frivolous spending sprees could look bad if you later file for bankruptcy. This is technically a form of fraud and bankruptcy courts look down upon it.

Move Items Into Storage: Moving out of a house and into a rented apartment or townhouse can be a dramatic experience and you will more than likely not have room for all the furniture or other things you have accumulated over time. If they are meaningful to you then you might consider renting a storage unit and beginning to move furniture and other important items into that storage unit so that when you physically leave your house with the keys in the door you don’t have to worry about moving with truckloads of stuff. If you have items that you aren’t personally attached to or don’t need to save, then consider having a yard sale or donating them to charity for the tax write-off. This is a perfect time to “de-clutter” your home.

Pay Property Taxes: Again, this may depend upon your attorney’s advice or your financial situation, but you it may actually be a good idea to continue to pay the property taxes on your home while you purposely do not pay the mortgage. By paying the property taxes you’ll generally keep your local township or city government off your back while you live in your home mortgage-free. If you don’t pay your property taxes then you may end up having two organizations looking to evict you from your home: your mortgage lender and your local government.

Walking away from your home in a strategic default is supposed to be a step that will help you financially and ease some of the stress you may be feeling. It is not always an easy process and it’s not something you want to do quickly and without thought. With a little bit of planning you can continue to live in your home for months or even years without paying the mortgage and you can use that time to get yourself financially prepared for the future. Don’t think of leaving your home as the end of your residence in that house. Instead, think of the process of leaving your home and saving that mortgage money as the beginning of a new and financially sound future for you and your family!