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Can You Stop Your Home Foreclosure?
August 10, 2018
If you are suddenly finding yourself in the very difficult position of being unable to afford your house payments, you may fear that a foreclosure is right around the corner. This is frightening, but preventing a home foreclosure isn’t as impossible as it sounds. Here’s what you should know to protect your largest and most valuable asset.
What is a Foreclosure?
When a homeowner fails to pay his mortgage payments, the bank that owns the mortgage has the right to eventually take possession of the property. This is known as a foreclosure, and it is usually a rather long process that leads to the temporary financial downfall of the owners involved. Since a foreclosure is the ultimate financial default, it aggressively lowers a person’s credit score and makes it difficult to purchase another house until many years have passed.
A Foreclosure Can Be Stopped
You may not realize that you have options to stop or delay a foreclosure, but your foreclosure attorney will know all of the avenues open to you. The first step your attorney will take is to contest your foreclosure by demanding that your mortgage lender provides entitlement to foreclose your property under Florida law.
Your attorney will also ask your lender to prove that it complied with every term and condition of the mortgage contract before initiating the foreclosure process. It’s common for mortgage lenders to make errors, so it is very possible that you have a number of defenses against foreclosure.
Foreclosure Alternatives
A loan modification, short sale, and deed in lieu are the most common foreclosure alternatives, but your attorney may present another alternative after reviewing your situation.
A loan modification allows you to keep your home by renegotiating your mortgage terms, establishing a more affordable monthly payment, and placing the past due payments at the back of your loan term.
A short sale, on the other hand, makes it possible to sell your home for less than you owe to the bank. This liberates you from debt and allows you to walk away without a foreclosure. A deed in lieu, on the other hand, involves trading the title of your property back to the lender to clear yourself of debt.
Each method of contesting a foreclosure can be used in specific situations, so by working with an attorney you can identify which will resolve your problems and help you either save your home or sell it without the burden of debt.