Don’t Wait Until the Last Minute to Get Help

Yesterday I received a call from a husband and wife in tears because they had just attended their eviction hearing and the judge did not rule in their favor.

I’m always surprised when people call or e-mail me a week, a few days or even after they’ve lost a hearing. I’m not an attorney and even if I was, I can’t do anything for you if you’ve already lost the case.

I want to be completely honest with our readers: Unless you plan to keep making your mortgage payments, there is always a possibility that you will be foreclosed upon. You need to be mentally, emotionally and financially prepared for the day when that happens.

We’ve all been snowed with false hope. Loan modifications are a great example of this. No one, not even our government, thought that the banks would be so difficult to deal with. There are some of you out there who have waited for two years to get a loan modification! Some of you have been duped by foreclosure rescue scams, tried short sales and done other things to avoid foreclosure, and many times, despite your best efforts, you still can’t seem to avoid foreclosure.

There is no magical solution to foreclosure outside of making your mortgage payments. (Sometimes the bank forecloses on the wrong house, so it’s possible that making your house payment doesn’t guarantee anything!) There is no one size fits all strategic default strategy. You have to do what’s right for you, and the point I’d really like to make is that you need to figure your plan out sooner rather than later.

Once the foreclosure process starts, it is very easy to get overwhelmed by it, and stopping it can be even harder, especially if you don’t have a lot of money.

I don’t mean to criticize these homeowners, because I’m sure they’re good people. However, they should have started preparing for this six months ago and their eviction may have been avoided completely. These people could come home in a few days to find their belongings in their front yard.

So, here are a few suggestions to homeowners out there.

First, I’ve seen Foreclosure Mill Attorneys doing some pretty shady stuff, so I think checking the recorder’s office weekly is a good idea if you’ve stopped making payments. If you find a MERS assignment or a Notice of Substitution of Trustee, this is usually a signal that the foreclosure process is starting and you had better have a plan of action in mind by this point.

Second, once you get a Notice of Trustee’s sale, there are a specific number of days before the house can be auctioned off. Check your state’s laws here. Once you are into that period of time, you have to take action (or inaction) according to your plan.

Third, if you haven’t done so already, go talk to an attorney about your options, get a loan audit if you think you want one, and consider all your options long before the sale date.

Finally, if you are feeling bad emotionally, get some help. Talk to a friend, or go see a professional. There are a lot of people in the same predicament as you and there is nothing wrong with getting help.

DISCLAIMER:

****CHRISTINE SPRINGER IS NOT A LICENSED ATTORNEY. THIS BLOG IS COMPRISED OF HER OPINIONS, OBSERVATIONS AND INTERPRETATIONS AND IS NOT INTENDED TO BE CONSTRUED AS LEGAL ADVICE. PLEASE CONSULT WITH AN ATTORNEY BEFORE RELYING ON OR TAKING ANY ACTION BASED ON THE INFORMATION IN THIS BLOG.****

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