4 Defenses You Can Use When Facing Foreclosure
Posted on: 18 September 2017
If you are at risk of losing your home to foreclosure, you need to know that there is still hope. There are potential legal defenses that you can take to potentially keep your home. While you may have defaulted on your loan, and the bank may have sent you a foreclosure notice, the war isn't over yet. You can still fight back. There are ways to stall the proceedings and possibly even stop them completely:
1. Modify Your Mortgage
A loan modification is the first step that you should take at stopping the foreclosure process. With a loan modification, you will speak to the lender and try to renegotiate your mortgage terms. Essentially, the goal here is to get payments that are more affordable. If you are currently behind on payments, you will also want to negotiate to have those payments added to the outstanding principal balance. This way, they can be repaid over the duration of the loan or possibly in a single payment when the loan comes to an end.
2. State Procedures Weren't Followed
Sometimes, when the lenders are backed up with foreclosures, they may fail to follow the proper procedures outlined by the state when bringing foreclosure actions. If they did this, then you can use this against them and challenge the foreclosure. If it is successful, then the lender will have to start the process over. OF course, this is only a stalling tactic, but it may give you some time to gather the funds to pay the outstanding balance on your mortgage or come up with another foreclosure defense.
3. You're an Active Duty Service Member
If you are a member of the military and are on active duty, then you are granted special protections. You will be able to request a postponement of foreclosure proceedings in writing if you are currently on Active Duty when the lender initiates foreclosure proceedings.
4. Produce the Note
The owner of the mortgage loan is the only one that can initiate the foreclosure process. Due to the fact that banks tend to sell mortgages to other banks quite often, there is a good chance that the original lender is not still the owner of the mortgage. Therefore, something couldn't have gotten mixed up in the chain of custody. Therefore, it could prove to be a difficult challenge for the mortgage holder to prove who owns it. With this defense, they will need to present appropriate documentation (the original promissory note) before the foreclosure process can move forward.
If you have received a notification from the bank about an impending foreclosure, it is important that you reach out to an experienced foreclosure defense attorney immediately. If you fail to do so, you could reduce your chances at avoiding foreclosure.
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