Stay in your home to delay a foreclosure.
Many lawyers now have just two words for homeowners who may have received a foreclosure filing. This suggestion will apply to those who are way behind on their mortgage payments or are facing the foreclosure process. The advice is to stay put. It is this simple, and it is to remain in your home to delay or stop the foreclosure.
The huge number of foreclosures across the nation has slowed down the legal system and courts, which is allowing homeowners to continue to live in their homes while the paperwork goes through the bogged down court system. Depending on the jurisdiction, many attorneys say it can be multiple months or even a year before the process concludes.
Most homeowners do not realize that they can stay in their homes while this is ongoing. So they can live many months or a year or more while the foreclosure goes through the legal system and court process. Almost all foreclosure specialists and attorneys say this.
How long can I delay a foreclosure filing?
Better yet, if you are a homeowners who is willing to challenge the foreclosure filing to try to prevent it or delay it further, you may be able to stay in your home for over a year. With that being said, there are now more common occurrences of families being able to keep their homes for up to two years just by filing a few basic legal documents with an attorney.
A legal challenge to the foreclosure filing lets the homeowner save money for post-foreclosure life, if they end up losing their home. Since the family now has more time, they can work, save money, and rebuild their finances. This additional time is very important as ruined credit from a filing will make it harder to find a new place to live after they lose their home.
Lawyers also say that their are more advantages to fighting the foreclosure filing. For examples, making the legal process more time-consuming and costly may push the bank or lender to find alternatives. The lender may end up offering you other options to the foreclosure like a loan modification or maybe go through with a short sale.
The truth is that the attorneys for the banks and lenders hope that the owner does not bother to fight the foreclosure filing or try to stop the process. A big reason being that if a homeowner just walks away from the property without challenging it, attorneys for the banks will hardly spend any time in court and can retake the home in as little as 90 days.
Lawyers for the lenders have other financial interests as well. These lenders will often pay law firms a flat fee for each foreclosure filing that they process and every judgment they obtain, so they are tending to naturally focus on the easier foreclosure filing cases. What happens is that when a homeowner files paperwork that takes the foreclosure case out of the fast track to completion and sends the process into the slower, traditional court, the lender’s attorneys will usually seem to put the case aside as they do not want to be slowed down and spend extra time or money on it.
Many non-profit HUD counseling agencies have helped homeowners thru the foreclosure process by putting them in contact with assistance programs. They can help delay the process or find any one of a number of other solutions. The consultation from the specialist will be free, so there is no risk to requesting information. More on HUD certified foreclosure specialists.
File a motion to delay the foreclosure
Also, work with a foreclosure attorney or specialist to file a motion in the local court. This can be effective as any motion that requires the banks to produce information on your property or case can delay the filing for months as they try to produce this info. The more difficult the request you file for, the longer the delay that may occur in your foreclosure case can be.
You may ask, what is the going time lag for banks or lenders to respond to the homeowner when they asks to see some type of paperwork? While it varies based on each borrower, it can slow down the process for up to six months.
Many attorney state the banks are very disorganized, and overall the system and process is set up to be advantageous to homeowners who fight the filing. Some lenders and mortgage servicers can’t even find a copy of your loan documents. Or maybe the paperwork was not even properly signed. In any case, this adds time to the process.
In addition, the more time it takes the lender to get that motion or judgment file means this will be more they think it will cost them in time and money. This will then lead to a greater chance the bank's attorney will realize an alternative solution, such as a loan modification, would be faster and cheaper for the bank.
Then, if you have done everything you can, but still are about to lose your home, once you appear to have lost the case, consider filing for bankruptcy as it will stop the foreclosure. This is yet another step that will typically add several months period of time. More on bankruptcy.
Use an attorney
They can assist you through the process. Foreclosure defense attorneys can file motions and even help with the basic documents that will give you additional months of living in a home. They are experts in dealing with local court systems.
Foreclosure lawyers and specialists can also usually take the case from you for a flat fee that could equal just one or two months' of your monthly mortgage payments, and not only can they help delay or stop the foreclosure filing, they can also just help you avoid the legal pitfalls that homeowners can fall into when trying to represent themselves through the process. Read more on attorneys and their services, including learn how they can help with the loan modification process.
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