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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 documents you get from the court or your bank. You should satisfy all court deadlines.

Notice of Default

A Notification of Default is generally the initial step in the foreclosure procedure. It will come over mail from your bank. The notice informs you which of your mortgage terms you have defaulted on. If you are behind on your mortgage payments, the notification must inform you just how much you are behind on your payments and charges and just how much time you have to capture up and treat the default. If you pay the cash you owe by the treatment date, you will avoid foreclosure.

Foreclosure Summons and Complaint

If you do not cure your mortgage default by bringing your mortgage present, the bank can file documentation to start a foreclosure action in civil court. You will get copies of what the bank files. It will consist of a Summons and a Problem. The Summons gives you guidelines on what you require to do.

You need to submit a written Answer within 21 calendar days of when you got the Complaint.

It is essential to file a Response. If you do not, the bank can ask the court to release a Default Judgment. You will not get a notice if the bank requests a Default Judgment. If the court offers the bank a Default Judgment, the bank can get a Last Judgment Order and Decree of Foreclosure versus you.

Even if you do not file a Response, the home that you reside in can not be offered by the bank less than 8 months from when you get foreclosure papers. Also, you can still ask the court for mediation, even if the bank gets a Default Judgment versus you.

Your verified Answer

Your Answer must be in writing and ought to respond straight to the Complaint. For each numbered paragraph in the Complaint, you ought to write a corresponding number in your Answer and state if you "Agree," "Disagree" or "Don't know."

Your Answer should also be "validated," which implies that it includes this declaration at the end, followed by your signature:

"I state that the above declaration is true and accurate to the very best of my knowledge and belief. I comprehend that if the above statement is incorrect, I will go through the penalty of perjury, or other sanctions in the discretion of the court."

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

Use our Foreclosure Answer Form to respond to the Complaint.

- Download a fillable PDF version of the Answer kind.

• Use the Word variation of the Answer form. This Word document is not totally available. For the most available experience, utilize the fillable PDF above.
  
  If you have "Defenses" or "Counterclaims" versus the bank, you need to compose those at the bottom of your Answer (above the confirmation).
  
  Defenses are legal factors why the bank ought to not win the foreclosure case. To avoid losing your foreclosure case, you must compose your Defenses in the Answer. This is since even if you address, the court could still release a Default Judgment against you if you do not raise any Defenses. If you think the mortgage is prohibited or void for some factor, document your reasons in the Defenses section of your Answer. Or, if you think you are not behind on your mortgage, make a note of your reasons in the Defenses section.
  
  Counterclaims are claims back versus the bank seeking money or other relief for acts that breach your rights. If you don't 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 be able to sue the count on those claims at a later date.
  
  Mediation
  
  If you receive mediation, the Summons and Complaint will consist of a Demand for Mediation type. Submit the kind and send it to or drop it off at the court. Mediation will put the foreclosure case on hold and get you a meeting with the bank and a neutral individual called a mediator. At the conference, the bank has to consider you for a cost effective loan adjustment or other options that could help you conserve your home.
  
  Discovery
  
  After the Answer is filed and mediation completed, and before the court chooses your case, you or the bank can do pre-trial discovery. This indicates that you can ask the bank to respond to written concerns, confess to realities, offer you files, or supply other info. The bank needs to answer your demands in 30 days. The bank may also send you questions, ask you to admit facts, and ask you to provide them files. You should address the bank in 30 days.
  
  Summary Judgment
  
  If you and the bank agree about the realities, you or the bank can ask the court to decide the case without a trial. This is called a Movement for Summary Judgment. The motion has to be offered to the court in writing. The bank generally files a Motion for Summary Judgment in a foreclosure case.
  
  If you get a Movement for Summary Judgment, you need to react in composing within 1 month. If you do not respond in composing, the court can presume you agree with the movement and provide a foreclosure judgment against you.
  
  The court can give Summary Judgment before a trial only if you and the bank concur about the facts specified in the movement. If you disagree with the truths, or think the bank is incorrect or unreasonable, you should react in composing.
  
  Settlement with a loan modification agreement
  
  You can ask the bank to modify (modification) your loan so that you can decrease your regular monthly 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 filed, during mediation, or after judgment for the bank has been gone into, as long as there is adequate time for the bank to review your financial info. The faster this happens, the much better for you.
  
  If the bank chooses you receive a loan modification, it will generally send you a prepare for a three-month trial duration. During the trial duration, you need to pay the new payment amount on time each month. If you do that, you can qualify for a loan modification that brings you current on your mortgage account.
  
  If you qualify, there are several ways the bank can get you present on your account while keeping your payments cost effective:
  
  1. They can add your unpaid payment into your overdue principal balance and lower your rate of interest.
• They can let you pay over a longer duration of time.
• They can also choose that part of your financial obligation can be paid back later on.
  
  If you sign a loan adjustment agreement with the bank, it will settle the foreclosure case. For the most part, the bank's attorney will file a movement to dismiss the foreclosure case. If you sign a permanent loan adjustment contract and the bank's attorney does not submit a motion to dismiss the case, you need to file a letter with the court asking that your case be dismissed since of the modification.
  
  Merits hearing or trial
  
  If you and the bank do not agree about the truths or a loan adjustment 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 chance to tell your side of the case to the judge. You can bring witnesses, documents or other proof to show the judge. The court normally notifies at least 2 weeks before the trial date. If you have a good reason you can't concern court the day of the hearing, you should ask in writing for the court to reschedule the hearing. You need to do this as soon as possible and definitely before the day of the hearing.
  
  If you don't concern court on the day of the trial, the court can approve 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 do not concur with the quantity, you only have a short amount of time to let the court know that you do not concur.
  
  If you don't inform the court you disagree, the court will provide a Last Judgment Order and Decree of Foreclosure. It will inform you the overall amount that you owe and 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 duration
  
  The Final Judgment Order and Decree of Foreclosure will inform you a date when your redemption duration ends. Most of the times, it is about six months. If the residential or commercial property being foreclosed is not your main home, the court might give you less than six months. To redeem your residential or commercial property, you can pay the total that you owe the bank and prevent a foreclosure sale. There may be other methods to avoid the foreclosure of your home during the redemption duration. For example, if your bank concurs, you might get in into a loan adjustment contract. Or you could sell your home and settle what you owe.
  
  During the redemption duration, you can stay in your home and do not have to make mortgage payments. Any quantity not paid will be consisted of in the quantity you would need to pay to redeem the residential or commercial property, and might be included in a Shortage Judgment (see listed below).
  
  Foreclosure sale
  
  If you can not redeem your residential or commercial property or work something out before completion of your redemption period, the bank will schedule a foreclosure sale of your residential or commercial property. The bank should provide you one month composed notification of the sale date. The bank also needs to publish the sale notification in a regional paper for three weeks.
  
  If you are still living in the home, the foreclosure sale will occur at the curb of your residential or commercial property. Sometimes, the bank will ask the judge to enable it to evict you before the foreclosure sale. Usually, however, the bank will not evict you till 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 validates the sale, the residential or commercial property will go to the greatest bidder.
  
  Deficiency Judgment
  
  If the greatest quote at the foreclosure sale is less than what you owe on the mortgage, the bank can ask the judge for a Shortage Judgment against you. A Deficiency Judgment is a court order stating that you owe the quantity that the bank did not receive from the sale of your residential or commercial property. If the bank does not request a Deficiency Judgment at the confirmation hearing, it can not try to get a judgment against you later on for that debt.
  
  Many banks do not ask for Deficiency Judgments. Even if the bank gets a Deficiency Judgment against you, the law may not require you to pay it if your residential or commercial property and revenues are exempt from judgment. Some income and assets can not be drawn from you by your financial institutions. If all of your income and possessions are protected by the law, you are "judgment-proof."
  
  Eviction
  
  Any time after the redemption duration ends, the bank can ask the court for a Writ of Possession to evict you. A sheriff will serve you with the Writ of Possession. You will have 2 week to move your personal belongings and leave the residential or commercial property. If you do not go out throughout the 14-day duration, the sheriff can eliminate you.
  
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