A medical crisis, loss of a job, accidents – all those things you just didn’t plan for – can result in a temporary financial crisis that could lead to the foreclosure sale of your home in California. California foreclosure sales do not require a court order and take about four months to work through the system. However, if the lender, such as Countrywide, wants to get a deficiency judgment against you, it will get a court order. In the case of a court-ordered foreclosure sale, you would have up to one year to redeem the property. That’s why nearly all foreclosures are handled out of court.
In California, a lender begins the process of a foreclosure sale by filing a notice of default with the county recorder. The notice will list your name and the name of the lender, the default amount and the date by which you must pay the arrears. This notice will be made to you, and anyone else with an interest in the property. If you haven’t paid the default amount and the applicable legal costs of the lender within 90 days of receiving the notice, a trustees’ sale can be scheduled. Legally you can prevent the sale from proceeding any time up to five days before the auction by paying the total outstanding amount plus the lender’s costs.
To comply with the laws governing foreclosure sales, your lender must also post a notice of sale on the property and in at least one local public location, 20 days before the proposed sale. The same notice must also be sent to you and published once a week in a local newspaper starting three weeks before the scheduled sale date. Fourteen days prior to the sale, your lender must send the notice to the county recorder for registration. Information required on the notice includes the date of sale, place of sale, trustee’s contact information and the address of your home.
California law requires that the property must be sold at a public auction to the highest bidder, who must settle the transaction by paying the full amount in cash or with a cashier’s check. Bidding is open to everybody, including junior lien holders and your lender.
The trustee has the right to postpone the sale right up to the day of the auction. However, if the sale is cancelled more than three times, a new notice of sale must be issued. On completion of the sale, ownership is transferred to the highest bidder. Once that occurs, you have no rights and no ability to regain ownership of your property.
You Can Avoid Foreclosure in California
With over 200 foreclosure specialists and a team of specialty attorneys on retainer, we know the foreclosure laws of California. We know your rights and the procedures to avoid foreclosure. Just as importantly, we know the internal policies of nearly every lender operating throughout the United States.
But it’s essential to act quickly. You need to stop foreclosure as early in the process as possible. The changes in the economic climate recently, after record low interest rates and high real estate appreciation, have put more and more families at risk. So many homeowners are now spending more than the recommended 28 percent of their gross incomes on housing.
So if you’re at risk or have missed one or two mortgage payments, contact us immediately. Let us help you reorganize your financial life so you can keep your family home.
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