Reclaim Your Home Even after a Foreclosure Sale
Being evicted from your home can be an extremely stressful situation. Homeowners that actually make it through an eviction can be very distraught. An eviction occurs when a homeowners goes past due on their mortgage, they remain past due and their home progresses to foreclosure. The foreclosure sale occurs, and the homeowner has to vacate the home voluntarily and be forced out physically by law enforcement, the sheriff. There are many steps along the way for a mortgagee to try to save their home if they are determined to do so. The necessary steps usually include gathering the necessary funds to save your home.
No one wants to go through an eviction process. A homeowners usually does not deliberately choose to become over due with their mortgage payments, and avoid making their payment to stay behind on their mortgage. Typically there was some unfortunate circumstance(s) that lead a person down such a path; such as the economy, divorce, curtailment of income, job loss, death, loosing tenants, or tenants stop paying, and the list goes on.
Your really have to go terribly far behind on your mortgage to be evicted in some states. Take New York For example, you usually have to go at least 3 months behind on your mortgage before going into foreclosure. Once a property in the state of New York goes into foreclosure status it takes 10 months before all of the proper legal procedures are followed before it makes it to a foreclosure sale. Even though the state of New York does not have a redemption period, which is a period where the borrower can pay up what is owed and reclaim the property after a foreclosure sale occurs. The old owners still has an opportunity of 180 days after the sale date to pay all outstanding balance and fees, and reclaim the property if it was not bought by a 3rd party at the foreclosure sale. Now for states with a redemption period even when someone buys the property at the foreclosure auction the redemption period will allow the old owner to reclaim the property within a set amount of time if they are able to pay off what they owe on the property. However, every state is different. The reason why a homeowner in New York can reclaim their property even after a foreclosure sale is because, there is an eviction time set forth for each state for the homeowner to vacate the property. But if no one bought the property at auction and the property is Real Estate Owned(REO) or Real Estate Managed(REM), and the homeowner is now able to acquire the funds that are outstanding on their mortgage. Every thing including their missed payments, late fees, attorney fee and cost, eviction cost, and any other outstanding fees; then they may clear it up with their lender and save the property by paying everything in full.
Remember, not all homes that goes to foreclosure auction get sold. If a home does not have a buyer at the 1st auction it has to go back to at least one more time to the foreclosure auction to get a buyer. The mortgage company will try to liquidate their asset. So do not think that because your property went to auction or was bought by someone else that means it’s over for you. Each state and each circumstance may be different. Talk to your lender 1st to determine if you are still able to save your property, and if you are able to save it, find out what the necessary step are for doing so. Communicate with your lender through the whole process until you are through with saving your home, if you are able to do so.
You might have to do some pleading to reclaim the property after a sale but believe me, in my many years of dealing with attorney’s, homeowners, and mortgage professionals, not to mention everyone else in between, I have seen situations change quickly for homeowners. I have dealt with many homeowners that thought they had lost their property, when in fact if they had the money to pay everything outstanding on their mortgage they would have been able to save their property. Some homeowners manange to gather the money and save their property. So do not give up until you have exhausted all of your resource and possibilities.
