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Foreclosure and Loan Modification Blog

Foreclosure Documents Demystified

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.

Using Affirmative Defenses When Answering A Foreclosure Complaint

When your bank serves you with a foreclosure complaint for not paying your mortgage, you have a right to answer it and deny its charges, which you should.

You should also include something called affirmative defenses in your response to the complaint because they are a vital part of a good foreclosure defense strategy.

What Is An Affirmative Defense?

An affirmative defense in a civil lawsuit is a fact that defeats or mitigates the consequences of a charge. For example, in a foreclosure complaint the plaintiff will charge that you haven't been paying your mortgage and they're entitled to foreclose because of that. An affirmative defense wouldn't deny that (though the answer probably would), but it would basically say that it doesn't matter for some reason, like the plaintiff doesn't have the right to foreclose.

Avoid Judicial Default By Answering Foreclosure Complaint

If you miss mortgage payments, or pay less than what is required, then you're in default on your mortgage loan. Your lender will at some point send you a notice of default letter notifying you that by not paying your mortgage, you're in violation of the terms of the promissory note that you signed and are at risk of losing your home to foreclosure.

If you don't work things out by reinstating your loan (paying the entire amount you're behind), agreeing to a repayment plan, or getting a loan modification, then the foreclosure process will continue.

Further along in the foreclosure process there's another type of default that can happen called a judicial default or clerk's default. A judicial default is a “binding judgment in favor of either party based on some failure to take action by the other party.”

How To Tell If You Can Save Your Home From Foreclosure

When you take out a mortgage to buy a home, your plan is to never miss a payment and live in the house until you pay off the mortgage or sell the property to buy another home. So what happens when the plan goes awry and you miss payments? You're at risk of losing your home to foreclosure, obviously.

However, foreclosure doesn't happen like flipping a light switch. In judicial foreclosure states the foreclosure process is long and filled with legal procedures that most homeowners aren't familiar with and don't understand.

It can be hard to tell when you're fighting for a lost cause, and when you should keep fighting, and how. Here's a look at some of the things that happen, and how to tell if you could still keep your home when they happen.

About this Blog

Amerihope Alliance Legal Services is a leading loan modification and foreclosure defense law firm with attorneys licensed in 5 states. We have helped over 7,000 homeowners fight back and keep their homes.

Click to Read Our Super Loan Mod Success Stories

Our goal is to provide valuable information to help homeowners who are trying to obtain a loan modification or to stop foreclosure. You may schedule a free consultation at any time.

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