Approximately 250,000 families enter into foreclosure every 3 months due to delinquent home loan payments or delinquent property taxes. Each of these homeowners has one thing in common: they have to make the decision of whether or not to fight for their home. However, if you want to fight the foreclosure and keep your home, it's time to find a foreclosure defense attorney. Here are some reasons why:
An expedited foreclosure, also known as a fast-track foreclosure, is an action pursued by the lender of the mortgage which allows the lender to foreclose on a home more quickly than the typical foreclosure process would allow. The lender files a motion to expedite the foreclosure with the courts. The motion for an expedited foreclosure is also served to the homeowner. This motion is only granted to the lender if the lender can show that the home has been abandoned and may be at risk of harm.
You can also receive a motion for expedited foreclosure when you are still living in the home. If this should happen to you, it is very important that you meet with a foreclosure defense attorney to review the documents. In most cases, you will want to hire a lawyer to make sure you follow all of the instructions and respond and object to the motion. This means you may have to submit evidence and attend a court hearing in order for the judge to decide whether or not you have abandoned the home.
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.
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.
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.
Mr. Cooper Loan Modification
We received a modification for our client's mortgage with Mr. Cooper. They were 10 months behind, and in an active foreclosure case. This new modification lowers their mortgage payments from $803.82 per month to $743.64.
Do you have a Mr. Cooper mortgage that's past due? See some of our other Mr. Cooper case results here.
This holiday season, you may get the gift of delayed foreclosure because courts and banks will be closed some days around Christmas and New Year's.
Foreclosure sale dates often aren't scheduled by courts for the end December to account for the days they will be closed.
The closures will also temporarily disrupt progress on moving a foreclosure case toward a sale.
That's means that you may have slightly more time in your home than if your foreclosure case was moving forward at another time of the year.
Foreclosure Eviction Moratoriums
It's possible to have some delays in your foreclosure case just because of the courts being closed. But there are also some actions being taken specifically to help families stay in their homes during the holidays.
If you fall behind on your mortgage, and your home is in a judicial foreclosure state, you lender must sue you in a civil foreclosure lawsuit to take your home. While being sued may sound scary, it's actually better for your in nonjudicial foreclosure states because you have more opportunities to contest foreclosure. And you want as many opportunities as possible.
But opportunities must be seized! Whether you want to keep your home by getting a loan modification, or you just want to avoid foreclosure for as long as possible so you can save money before giving up your home, you should seize the opportunities available to you by contesting the foreclosure lawsuit against you.
Getting out of foreclosure is only half the battle. The other half is staying out.
After months or years of not making house payments and trying to avoid foreclosure, some homeowners have been able to reinstate their mortgage with a permanent loan modification that gives them the opportunity to keep their home and avoid foreclosure for good.
Unfortunately, some of these homeowners have stopped making mortgage payments again and ended up back in foreclosure.
That's called a repeat foreclosure, and it's been a big problem since the housing crisis began. ATTOM Data Solutions recently reported data on repeat foreclosures. The results show very high rates in some parts of the country.
