Stop Foreclosures - Will I Know If My Home Is Being Foreclosed On ?
If you are in financial trouble and you are worried that your home will be foreclosed on, take a deep breath. While foreclosure is very serious and something that you shouldn’t ignore, it is something that can be reversed and dealt with. Banks do not want to foreclose homes; it means a loss of money to them as well as a lengthy legal process that they honestly just do not want to deal with. A foreclosure doesn’t happen over night and typically does not happen when you are late on a payment or are a month behind for a couple of months. Generally, your mortgage holder understands when you have to make a late payment every now and again. Generally speaking, the majority of people have a late mortgage payment from time to time, but this does not mean that they will be foreclosed on or anywhere near it.
Will I Know?
There is no doubt that you will know if your home is being foreclosed on. Unless you don’t open your mail and you never answer you telephone or check your messages, there is no way for you not to know that your home is being foreclosed on. As was stated above, banks do not want to foreclose on a home. The bottom line is that a bank has a better chance of recovering the debt from the current owner than it has a chance of not losing money throughout the foreclosure process. Banks are not in the business of foreclosing mortgages; they are in the business of loaning money. Therefore, the bank does not want to foreclose on your home and will make every possible effort to notify that they need your help to work through your delinquent payment issues. You’ll likely receive notices in the mail, some which are registered or certified so that the bank is sure you got them. The bank will also call you at home as well as at work and every other number that they have in attempt to make some sort of payment arrangement with you to reconcile the debt.
While you might get what seem like threatening letters, the bank just wants you to get in contact with them and let them know what is going on. These threatening letters are an attempt by the bank to make you get in touch with them, not simply to call and tell you that they are taking the house away from you. If you are worried about being yelled at by someone on the other end of the phone, remember that they are simply calling to try to work with you.
If you don’t respond to these calls and letters, within a few weeks or few months the foreclosure process will commence. The first thing the bank will do is send you yet another letter to let you know that they have begun the foreclosure process. Again, unless you simply do not read your mail, you’ll know that the process has officially begun. Around this time you might start getting even more mail and you won’t be able to deny what is happening. You might get letters from lawyers encouraging you to file for bankruptcy to save your home, you might get letters from investors wanting to buy your house from you before the bank forecloses. You might walk out to your mailbox every day of the week and find it stuffed full of correspondences from your lender, investors, and lawyers. All of these people want to help you, so you will definitely know what is going on. With so many attempted correspondences, it will be hard if not impossible to deny what is going on. You don’t simply wake up one day and find that your home is being foreclosed on. So, call the bank and make some payment arrangements with them, file for bankruptcy, or even sell your home so that you don’t have the foreclosure on your record. The thing is, foreclosure doesn’t happen fast so you’ll have time to do any of these things.
Help with Foreclosures - Is It Too Late?
It’s never too late to stop a foreclosure once it stops. If you’ve been avoiding all the letters and the calls, you can still stop foreclosure in its tracks. Often you’ll have to make a big payment to satisfy the bank, but many times you just need to call and let the bank know what is going on and set up payment arrangements. The goal is to bring your loan current, and if you can do that in the next three to six months you’ll probably find that your bank will work with you. If the bank is no longer willing to work with you, you can always show up at the foreclosure auction and bid on your own home. The deposit for a bid is usually about $5,000, so if you have this and feel as though you can finance the home within 30 days you can always go this route.
It’s important to note that if you do bid on your home and win it at a foreclosure auction some old debts that were attached to the property may be reinstated when you take ownership of the house again. Either way, buying your home back at a foreclosure auction is a great way to get off to the right start again as well as keep your home. The great thing is that you can continue living in your home this whole time, so you aren’t suddenly without a home if your home does get foreclosed on.
The bottom line is that your home cannot be foreclosed on without your knowledge. You will have plenty of notice from your bank, along with your personal knowledge that you haven’t been making timely or adequate mortgage payments. Thankfully, the bank doesn’t want to foreclose on your home, so you can stop the process, and there is no doubt that it can’t happen unless you are aware.
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