Mississippi Foreclosure Procedure
Judicial and Non-Judicial Foreclosures are foreclosure methods offered for lenders in Mississippi although the non-judicial ones are the types usually resorted to by the mortgagee. A foreclosure sale under a deed of trust is final in Mississippi. There is no right of redemption.
Judicial Foreclosures
As in similar cases with other states, the lender has to file a lawsuit in a Chancery Court. The borrower has the right for a proper conduct of the sale, after proper notice and advertisement of the sale, and could not be waived in the security documents. If the sale has defects or inadequacies that causes it to be void could not be rectified by the statue of limitations only after ten years from the date of the said defective sale.
Non-Judicial Procedures
If the sale is authorized in the mortgage and the borrower defaulted on the payments, the lender or the trustee may be sold to try and pay off the loan conducted in compliance with Mississippi’s statutes. A substitute trustee or representative of the trustee is invalid unless this was recorded if the Office of the Chancery clerk of the county where the land is located, prior to the first posting or publishing of the foreclosure sale notice. If the lender, instead of some other buyer, acquires title to the real estate at foreclosure, then the lender will give credit for the foreclosure sale price against what was due on the loan.
Foreclosure Guidelines
Three weeks prior to the foreclosure sale, the notice should be advertised in a newspaper of general circulation in the county in which the land is located. Moreover, one notice should be posted for the same time at the county courthouse door. The notice must name the borrowers who will lose title.
The courthouse is usually the venue for foreclosure sales in the state and the sale must be made made by public outcry in the county where the land is located, or in the county where the borrower lives. The sale must be for cash to the highest bidder.
Post-Sale Matters
After the sale, the trustee or substitute trustee must deliver a trustee's deed to the successful high bidder. The deed should give the names specified in the old deed of trust that was foreclosed on. The trustee's deed should also give information sufficient to locate the foreclosed deed of trust or mortgage in the deed records.
Cure Procedure
Borrowers in the state could prevent the foreclosure proceedings by making the necessary default payments, accrued costs and attorney’s fees and trustee’s fees on the property. However, only the amount actually past due needs to be paid even if the lender would accelerate the loan and make all future payments due, the borrower has the legal right to disregard the acceleration and stop the foreclosure.
Special Procedures - Foreclosure and Major Disasters
A moratorium on foreclosure could be declared by the Governor of the State in cases of natural disaster, an enemy attack, or a man-made technological disaster. This could last up to two years after the governor’s declaration. The borrower can go to court and file a lawsuit to enjoin a lender from foreclosing stating the aforesaid reasons which caused the fair market value of the property to decline by 15 percent, if refinancing is impractical under the circumstances. No cash is required on the injunction. The borrower must take action because a foreclosure conducted during a moratorium while the borrower did nothing is valid, even though the borrower could have won by exercising these rights.
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