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Foreclosure Eviction Process


Guide to the Foreclosure Eviction Process

If your house is being foreclosed upon, you may have no idea when you must vacate your home or what your rights are in the foreclosure eviction process.  It can take some time for a foreclosure to move forward, and many states give you a significant amount of time to negotiate a deal to keep your home.  This guide will keep you informed about the foreclosure eviction process and help you know what to expect as the process moves forward.  You will also learn how to stop the eviction process, even after the sheriff has auctioned your home.

Foreclosure Notice

The first step in the foreclosure eviction process is the bank notifying you that you have defaulted on your loan.  After this notification has been delivered to your county recorder's office, you will be notified as to how much time you have to make a deal with your bank (this amount of time is called a reinstatement period).  Your reinstatement period typically will end only a few days before your home is auctioned off by your county sheriff in a sheriff's sale.

If you cannot make your loan current in the reinstatement period, the foreclosure eviction process will continue with a Notice of Sale, which will be physically posted on your property and recorded with the county and in newspapers.  The Notice of Sale lets people know about the date of the next phase of the foreclosure eviction process, the sheriff's sale.

Sheriff's Sale

If you cannot bring your mortgage current, your house will be subjected to auction by the county sheriff.  The foreclosure auction or sheriff's sale is a step in the foreclosure eviction process that sells the property to the highest bidder.

Usually, the opening bid on the property will be by your bank, which will bid an amount equal to the outstanding loan balance plus interest.  Often, no other bids will happen, and the foreclosure eviction process moves forward with the bank owning your home.

Redemption Periods

Even after the sheriff's sale, the foreclosure eviction process gives you a chance to keep your home.  A redemption period is a period of time after a sheriff's sale where you are allowed to negotiate with your lender or whoever purchased the house.  This redemption period may offer the last place in the foreclosure eviction process where you can reasonably keep your home.  Most banks prefer not to evict homeowners and make a sale of a bank-owned home, so you may be able to negotiate a deal to keep you in your home instead of facing eviction.

Once the redemption period expires, the foreclosure eviction process can be quite swift: you may be given only a few days' notice to vacate your property, and if you do not vacate, the sheriff is allowed to physically remove you from the premises.  It may be possible to buy your house back from the bank with a post-foreclosure mortgage, but these may require a very high down payment that would be difficult for most homeowners to offer.

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