All year long, Californians have been seeing news stories stating that foreclosure rates are down substantially, but the truth is that foreclosures will always exist or at an increased rate since the US economy is doing poorly and the unemployment rate is increasing.
New laws protecting homeowners, called the California Homeowner’s Bill of Rights, were put into effect on January 1st 2013, forcing mortgage lenders to re-evaluate their foreclosure processes procedures to ensure that they wouldn’t be illegally foreclosing. This started an unofficial moratorium, stopping foreclosures in California, and leaving Bank of America as the only lender that continued foreclosing on properties throughout the year. From May until August, foreclosure rates have been lower than in previous years, but you can expect the remainder of the year to produce different results.
The lenders will scramble during the fourth quarter to hurry through foreclosures that they couldn’t push through earlier this year due to the new laws and their antiquated processes. We’ve already started to see Nationstar and Chase foreclosures coming back at a furious pace. Amazingly, after stopping foreclosures for months, these mortgage lenders are still proceeding with illegal foreclosures on California Homeowners.
Did You Receive a Notice of Default or Trustee Sale?
Armed with the California Homeowners Bill of Rights, our foreclosure attorneys now have more options when protecting our clients from foreclosure. The foreclosure process starts with a Notice of Default, which a lender will typically send once a homeowner is about 3 months behind on monthly payments. At this point, the lender is asking for an outrageous amount of money in arrearages – past monthly payments + late penalties and fines.
If the homeowner is unable to catch back up on payments, the company will issue a Notice of Trustee Sale (NTS). This notice will inform the homeowner of when the trustee plans to sell the property at auction. In most cases, the sale date would be set about 30 days after the NTS is issued.
The best thing that you can do to stop foreclosure and save your home is to call a foreclosure lawyer as soon as you receive either of these documents from your mortgage company. We offer free legal consultations to determine if your lender committed fraud or any violations during the foreclosure process and outline what options would be available in your case.
Call The California’s Trusted Foreclosure Attorney
We have years of experience, hundreds of saved homes, and millions of dollars saved for our clients. Call a California foreclosure attorney that you can trust for a free consultation to get you on the path to stop your foreclosure sale date.
