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If you lag on your mortgage payments and your bank is threatening to foreclose on your home, there are some things you can do. Make certain to look carefully at any documentation you obtain from the court or your bank. You must satisfy all court deadlines.

Notice of Default

A Notice of Default is generally the first step in the foreclosure procedure. It will come by mail from your bank. The notification informs you which of your mortgage terms you have defaulted on. If you lag on your mortgage payments, the notification should tell you just how much you are behind on your payments and charges and just how much time you have to catch up and treat the default. If you pay the cash you owe by the treatment date, you will prevent foreclosure.

Foreclosure Summons and Complaint

If you do not cure your mortgage default by bringing your mortgage present, the bank can submit paperwork to begin a foreclosure action in civil court. You will get copies of what the bank files. It will consist of a Summons and a Grievance. The Summons provides you guidelines on what you need to do.

You must file a written Answer within 21 calendar days of when you received the Complaint.

It is very important to submit a Response. If you do not, the bank can ask the court to issue a Default Judgment. You will not get a notice if the bank requests for a Default Judgment. If the court provides the bank a Default Judgment, the bank can get a Final Judgment Order and Decree of Foreclosure against you.

Even if you do not submit a Response, the home that you reside in can not be sold by the bank less than eight months from when you get . Also, you can still ask the court for mediation, even if the bank gets a Default Judgment versus you.

Your verified Answer

Your Answer needs to remain in writing and need to respond straight to the Complaint. For each numbered paragraph in the Complaint, you should compose a corresponding number in your Answer and say if you "Agree," "Disagree" or "Don't understand."

Your Answer must likewise be "verified," which means that it includes this declaration at the end, followed by your signature:

"I declare that the above statement holds true and accurate to the best of my knowledge and belief. I understand that if the above declaration is incorrect, I will undergo the charge of perjury, or other sanctions in the discretion of the court."

If your Answer does not include this declaration and your signature, the court may issue a Default Judgment versus you.

Use our Foreclosure Answer Form to react to the Complaint.

- Download a fillable PDF variation of the Answer kind.

Use the Word version of the Answer kind. This Word file is not totally available. For the most accessible experience, utilize the fillable PDF above.

If you have "Defenses" or "Counterclaims" against the bank, you require to write those at the bottom of your Answer (above the confirmation).

Defenses are legal reasons the bank need to not win the foreclosure case. To avoid losing your foreclosure case, you must write your Defenses in the Answer. This is since even if you answer, the court could still issue a Default Judgment versus you if you do not raise any Defenses. If you think the mortgage is prohibited or invalid for some reason, jot down your reasons in the Defenses section of your Answer. Or, if you believe you are not behind on your mortgage, jot down your reasons in the Defenses area.

Counterclaims are claims back against the bank looking for cash or other relief for acts that break your rights. If you do not raise Counterclaims, it will not lead to a Default Judgment versus you in the foreclosure case. However, if you do not consist of Counterclaims in your Answer, it is possible that you will not have the ability to sue the bank on those claims at a later date.

Mediation

If you get approved for mediation, the Summons and Complaint will include an Ask for Mediation form. Complete the form and send it to or drop it off at the court. Mediation will put the foreclosure case on hold and get you a conference with the bank and a neutral person called a mediator. At the meeting, the bank needs to consider you for an inexpensive loan modification or other options that could help you conserve your home.

Discovery

After the Answer is filed and mediation finished, and before the court decides your case, you or the bank can do pre-trial discovery. This indicates that you can ask the bank to respond to written questions, confess to realities, offer you documents, or offer other details. The bank must address your requests in one month. The bank may likewise send you concerns, ask you to confess facts, and ask you to provide them documents. You need to address the bank in one month.

Summary Judgment

If you and the bank concur about the facts, you or the bank can ask the court to decide the case without a trial. This is called a Motion for Summary Judgment. The motion has actually to be offered to the court in writing. The bank usually files a Motion for Summary Judgment in a foreclosure case.

If you get a Motion for Summary Judgment, you need to respond in writing within 1 month. If you don't react in composing, the court can assume you agree with the movement and release a foreclosure judgment versus you.

The court can give Summary Judgment before a trial just if you and the bank concur about the realities mentioned in the motion. If you disagree with the truths, or believe the bank is incorrect or unjust, you need to respond in writing.

Settlement with a loan adjustment agreement

You can ask the bank to modify (modification) your loan so that you can lower your month-to-month payments. This is called a loan adjustment. This can occur anytime throughout the course of the bank's case versus you: right after the case is submitted, throughout mediation, or after judgment for the bank has been gone into, as long as there is adequate time for the bank to evaluate your monetary info. The earlier this happens, the much better for you.

If the bank decides you get approved for a loan adjustment, it will generally send you a prepare for a three-month trial period. During the trial duration, you need to pay the brand-new payment amount on time every month. If you do that, you can receive a loan adjustment that brings you existing on your mortgage account.

If you certify, there are numerous methods the bank can get you current on your account while keeping your payments economical:

1. They can add your past due payment into your overdue principal balance and lower your rates of interest.

They can let you pay over a longer time period.
They can also choose that part of your financial obligation can be paid back later.

If you sign a loan modification arrangement with the bank, it will settle the foreclosure case. In many cases, the bank's legal representative will submit a movement to dismiss the foreclosure case. If you sign a long-term loan adjustment agreement and the bank's legal representative does not submit a movement to dismiss the case, you must file a letter with the court asking that your case be dismissed since of the adjustment.

Merits hearing or trial

If you and the bank do not agree about the realities or a loan modification and the court denies the bank's Motion for Summary Judgment, the court will send you a notification of a trial date. The trial is your opportunity to tell your side of the case to the judge. You can bring witnesses, documents or other evidence to show the judge. The court typically offers notice at least 2 weeks before the trial date. If you have a good reason that you can't concern court the day of the hearing, you must ask in writing for the court to reschedule the hearing. You need to do this as quickly as possible and absolutely before the day of the hearing.

If you don't concern court on the day of the trial, the court can give a judgment in favor of the bank.

Judgment

If the judge gives the bank a foreclosure judgment, the court will issue a declaration of what you owe on the residential or commercial property. This is called a "clerk's accounting." If you don't agree with the quantity, you just have a short time period to let the court know that you don't concur.

If you do not tell the court you disagree, the court will provide a Final Judgment Order and Decree of Foreclosure. It will tell you the total amount that you owe and just how much time you have to pay what you owe before the residential or commercial property is sold. This is called the "redemption period."

Redemption period

The Final Judgment Order and Decree of Foreclosure will tell you a date when your redemption period ends. In many cases, it has to do with six months. If the residential or commercial property being foreclosed is not your main residence, the court may provide you less than 6 months. To redeem your residential or commercial property, you can pay the full amount that you owe the bank and prevent a foreclosure sale. There may be other methods to prevent the foreclosure of your home throughout the redemption period. For instance, if your bank agrees, you might get in into a loan adjustment agreement. Or you might sell your home and pay off what you owe.

During the redemption duration, you can remain in your home and do not have to make mortgage payments. Any quantity not paid will be included in the quantity you would need to pay to redeem the residential or commercial property, and could be included in a Shortage Judgment (see below).

Foreclosure sale

If you can not redeem your residential or commercial property or work something out before the end of your redemption duration, the bank will arrange a foreclosure sale of your residential or commercial property. The bank needs to give you one month written notice of the sale date. The bank likewise has to publish the sale notice in a local paper for three weeks.

If you are still residing in the home, the foreclosure sale will happen at the curb of your residential or commercial property. Sometimes, the bank will ask the judge to permit it to evict you before the foreclosure sale. Usually, though, the bank will not evict you up until after the sale.

After the foreclosure sale, the court will have a hearing to choose if the foreclosure sale followed the law. This is called a confirmation hearing. If the court verifies the sale, the residential or commercial property will go to the highest bidder.

Deficiency Judgment

If the greatest bid at the foreclosure sale is less than what you owe on the mortgage, the bank can ask the judge for a Deficiency Judgment against you. A Shortage Judgment is a court order saying that you owe the amount that the bank did not receive from the sale of your residential or commercial property. If the bank does not request for a Shortage Judgment at the confirmation hearing, it can not attempt to get a judgment against you later on for that debt.

Many banks do not request Deficiency Judgments. Even if the bank gets a Shortage Judgment versus you, the law might not need you to pay it if your residential or commercial property and revenues are exempt from judgment. Some earnings and assets can not be drawn from you by your financial institutions. If all of your earnings and assets are safeguarded by the law, you are "judgment-proof."

Eviction

At any time after the redemption duration ends, the bank can ask the court for a Writ of Possession to evict you. A constable will serve you with the Writ of Possession. You will have 2 week to move your possessions and leave the residential or commercial property. If you do not get out throughout the 14-day period, the sheriff can remove you.

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