Until a foreclosure takes place you have the right to live in your home. Sometimes you can even remain in the home for a period of time after the foreclosure auction if your state has a post-sale redemption period. Until you are evicted you should continue to maintain your home. Read on for a few reasons why.
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You have 3 choices when served with foreclosure documents: you can respond yourself, hire an attorney or do nothing.
You have the best chance of keeping your home with the help of a foreclosure defense attorney, and you are guaranteed to lose your home if you do nothing. If neither of these choices sound good to you, you can respond and represent yourself.
Read on for a guide to starting the foreclosure defense process as a pro se litigant.
You've been served with foreclosure documents and now you're wondering: What's my next move to fight this action? Once you are served with foreclosure papers there are two options. You can be reinstated or you can request a loan modification.
To understand if you can fall victim to tax foreclosure you first have to determine whether you have an escrow account. Government-backed loans require an escrow account. Lenders of conventional loans that are not backed by the government can decide if they want to have an escrow account or not. Once you have an escrow account, you don't need to worry about paying property taxes because your loan servicer takes care of it. If you are a homeowner who does not have an escrow account for your mortgage or you have made all of your mortgage payments and own your home completely, you could be served with tax lien foreclosure documents. Tax lien foreclosure is a foreclosure that takes place after you fail to pay your property taxes. The foreclosure is initiated by the county that you live in because they have the lien on your home once you fail to pay the tax.
When you pay a mortgage on your home every month, it can sometimes seem like there are so many entities involved in the transaction. One entity you consistently keep hearing from is your mortgage servicer. What exactly does your mortgage servicer do?
If you are fortunate enough to be granted a loan modification, it is such a relief to know that you have saved your home! Almost losing your home to a foreclosure can be a scary wake up call that you hope to never have to go through again. Some people unfortunately do face foreclosure more than once, and when this happens there are many things to consider. One of them is whether you can modify your loan again.
Finding an attorney to assist you with your foreclosure can be a daunting and expensive task. It's important to be aware of all of your options when you are challenged with a notice of foreclosure.
You can proceed pro se, but a better alternative is to seek free legal help. Many states have free legal aid services in every county that will find an attorney to work on your foreclosure case for free. Your eligibility for these services depends on various factors such as: residency, type of residence being foreclosed on, and your family or individual income. Depending on your case, legal aid services can offer any kind of help, from the filling out of court forms all the way to representing your case in court.
Defining Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is not a matter of “who”, but a matter of “what”. Fannie Mae is a nickname for the Federal National Mortgage Association (FNMA). Freddie Mac is a nickname for the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (FHLMC). Both the FNMA and the FHLMC are home mortgage companies that were created by U.S. Congress. They do not originate or service mortgages, instead they buy and guarantee mortgages from the secondary mortgage market. The secondary mortgage market is where home loans and mortgage servicing rights are bought and sold between lenders and investors. This is great for homeowners because the secondary mortgage market creates competition in the mortgage industry and is responsible for encouraging lower interest rates.
When you are served with foreclosure documents it can be devastating. Given the current situation, you are faced with the possibility of losing your home during, what appears to be, a never-ending COVID-19 pandemic.
This foreclosure also didn't take place because you have tons of disposable income laying around. So now you have to decide how you are going to save your home. The idea of hiring an attorney in the wake of being served with foreclosure documents seems impossible: if you didn't even have enough money to pay your mortgage, how can you think about hiring a lawyer? So now you're considering representing yourself in court to save your house and to save the attorneys' fees.
This article was last updated July 10, 2020 at 10:45 a.m.
Federal Foreclosure Moratoriums
Federal laws now state that Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and FHA have been directed to suspend foreclosures and evictions due to the COVID-19 emergency. What does this mean? Any person with an Enterprise-backed single-family mortgage will not be evicted or foreclosed on before August 31st. This does not mean that your mortgage payments are forgiven for the next 2 months; you must still pay the money, the due dates have just been suspended. You will not be charged a fee for taking advantage of this forbearance. Also, as per the Federal CARES Act, your mortgage servicer is not allowed to ask you to pay a lump sum payment at the end of the forbearance period.
If you don’t know whether your loan is backed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, you can verify it below.
