Missouri Foreclosure Law
Missouri Foreclosure law mandates two types of foreclosure, the judicial and the non judicial under a power of sale clause.
Judicial Foreclosure
The lender has to file a petition in the office of the circuit court against the borrower or those occupying the property. The complaint should include information on the nature of the mortgage so that the court could render a decision on the amount due, to foreclose the equity of redemption (preventing the borrower from recovering the property by paying the mortgage) and to order that the property be sold to cover the balance on the loan. This is similar to a civil lawsuit and the borrower has to be served in person or through a notice published in a newspaper if efforts to locate him personally have been negative.
Power of Sale Foreclosures
The trustee before making foreclosing on mortgages with a power of sale clause, it should allow the borrower twenty (20) days notice, whether it is stipulated or not in the mortgage. The notice of foreclosure sale in countries with over fifty-thousand (50,000) inhabitants has to be published at least twenty (20) times in the daily newspaper up to the day of the sale while in counties with below fifty thousand population the notice has to be published one per week on the same day each week in a daily, tri-weekly or semi-weekly newspaper for four consecutive issues with the last publication to be not more than one week prior to the foreclosure sale.
Foreclosure Guidelines
The state requires that the trustee who would conduct the foreclosure sale has to mail the notice of the foreclosure to the borrower named in the deed of the trust at the last known address twenty days (20) prior to the scheduled date of mortgage; the person recorded by the office of the recorder’s deed of records forty (40) days before the foreclosure sale and any person whose name and address has been duly recorded 40 days in advance of the foreclosure sale.
Only the person named in the deed o trust or mortgage needs to conduct the sale. However, if the trustee is dead, neglects this duty or is incapacitated, a new trustee could be appointed. A foreign corporation may not be a trustee for foreclosure in the state of Missouri, unless a co-trustee who is a resident of Missouri is named.
It does not follow that if the borrower has not received the notice the foreclosure sale would be postponed since ecording of the receipt issued by the U.S. Post Office for certified or registered mail to evidence that the envelope has been delivered by the sender to the U.S. Post Office shall constitute proof of compliance with the notice requirements.
The trustee must conduct the sale in a fair manner at the time and place and in the manner specified in the notice of foreclosure, the deed of trust and the statute. The property is to be called out for sale and sold to the highest bidder. The lender may purchase at the sale, but if it does so, a right of redemption applies.
Redemption
If any person other than the lender, or someone purchasing on behalf of the lender, buys the property at a fairly and properly conducted foreclosure sale, then no right of redemption exists. If, on the other hand, the lender buys at the foreclosure sale, as is so often the case, then the borrower has a right to redeem the property for one year from the date of sale.
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