I don't know anything about car loans and repos, but it is not true that the bank "owns" the home/house, except perhaps in the philosophical sense. When you buy a house using it for collateral, you are the owner -- you are paying the previous owner for the house. Your payment may consist of a down payment out of your savings, a gift from your parents, etc, plus a loan from the bank, but the ownership transaction is between you and the seller. You are liable for the real estate taxes -- you may have arranged to make monthly payments to the lender and for him to send it to the tax office once per year, but if you lender misses the payment, it ain't the lender the tax man or woman will be dunning. You get the homestead exemption, not the bank. You get the mortgage interest deduction on your 1040 (and maybe the First Time Home Buyer's Credit), not the bank. Your name goes on the deed, along with a lien from the bank, but that does not mean the bank "owns" it -- only if you default can they try to take ownership. The plumbing breaks, you fix it. You don't like the color of the bedroom, you paint it. You can do pretty much anything you want with it within the limits of what you agreed to as part of the loan (say, not subleasing the house) and your HOAAEA wrote: ...
... In reality the Bank is the new home owner until it is paid off...
, but the legal owner's benefits and responsibilities reside with you, not the bank.And if you still want to argue that the financial interest means the bank "owns" the house, then I got news for you -- you are still wrong. The county government owns the house; you don't pay the taxes long enough, they will seize and sell it, and the bank will be standing in line along with you for any money the county receives above and beyond the owed taxes. That's why the lender often insists the taxes be rolled into the monthly loan payment -- the lender knows when push comes to shove, government wins every time.