No more Foreclosures

Foreclosure is the legal process your mortgage company uses to force the sale of your house when you are late on your house payments.

In Utah you must be 90 days late on your payment before a Notice of Default can be recorded. The legal process starts when a NOD is recorded at the County Recorder’s Office where you live. This is a public record and how people that contact you about your situation find out about it. A paper notice will be taped to your house, you will receive certified mail notifying you of the NOD and the clock starts to tick. At this point in Utah, you have at least 90 days to cure your default before a foreclosure sale date can be issued. Then you will get notice of a pending foreclosure sale at auction.

If the sale at auctions takes place, you no longer own your home. Protect your home from hitting the auction. You can avoid the entire thing all together.

The actual process of foreclosure typically starts in Utah once you have missed 3 mortgage payments. Once a Notice of Default is recorded, you have 90 days until your mortgage company will give you notice that they are going to officially move forward with the proceedings to sell your house at auction. The bank has to give you at least 3 weeks notice before the official sale date.

The shortest time it can take is about 7-8 months. 3 missed house payments is 3 months, then the notice of default period of 3 months and finally the 3 week notice before a house is sold at auction. Assuming the bank records a NOD right when you miss your 3rd payment and give notice of a sale right at the 3 month mark after the NOD was recorded. In reality, when mortgage companies are moving fast, it is about an 8 month process from when you miss your first payment.

Loan Modification, Forbearance, Foreclosure

A loan modification is typically a long term restructuring of a mortgage. The terms can be changed and amounts currently due from missed payments are added to the balance or the end of the new restructured loan.

A forbearance is a temporary solution. Your mortgage company may let you skip X number payments which are all due at some point after you start to make your normal payment. Sometimes a mortgage company will let you skip X number of payments, then you pay a higher payment until the skipped payments are paid back then your payment goes back to normal. The key is that a forbearance is temporary and the missed payments need to be paid back. The foreclosure process will start if you are not able to make your payments at some point.

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Keep My House in Foreclosure

There are several ways to keep your home in foreclosure such as chapter 13 bankruptcy, loan modification or forbearance, or work with an investor.

Chapter 13 bankruptcy is often the best solution for people that want to keep their house in terms of cost and success rate. The key for success when doing a modification or forbearance is to review your budget to make sure your new higher payment can be made over the long-term.

Working with an investor can work for you if a bankruptcy is not the answer for you or it has not worked in the past or a modification or forbearance has not worked. Investors can be very flexible with home owners regardless of how much equity you have. Investors can offer equity loans, reduce your house payment, buy your house and rent it back or even give you an option to buy the house back.

Sell My House in Foreclosure

Listing your house for sale with a real estate agent will normally net you the most money, but less opportunities to be flexible. Listing your home takes TIME and people going through your house, inspections, appraisals, repairs and being moved out on closing day.

Selling your house to an investor can give you options that are not available when listing your house.

Fair cash offer for your house in as-is condition no matter where you are in the Foreclosure Process.
Fast and timely to get cash
No rush to move out!
Rent your home back.
Option to buy your home back
No equity no problem

Foreclosure and Bankruptcies

We will give you our opinions on how foreclosure and bankruptcies work together, but we are not attorneys. Always contact a lawyer in times of bankruptcy or foreclosure. We only share our experience and offer no legal advice.

For most homeowners that want to stop foreclosure in Utah using bankruptcy, your options will be a Chapter 7 Bankruptcy or a Chapter 13 Bankruptcy. A Ch 7 typically means a person or married couple is going to bankrupt all of their debt and assets except for the amount exempted by law called the homestead exemption. In a Ch 7 assets are sold to satisfy debt except that a homeowner can keep the first $42k/$84k from the sale of the assets. A Ch 7 may be a good option to keep a house if the equity value in your house is lower than exemption amount and the missed payments can be caught up.

A Chapter 13 Bankruptcy is the option most home owners take to keep their house while in foreclosure. The main reason is because the missed payments can be made part of a payment plan. A typical Ch 13 goes like this: The court reviews the people filing bankruptcy looking at income, assets and secured and unsecured debt including the missed house payments. The court determines how much can be paid to each debt. All secured debt must be paid and some unsecured debt may or may not be eliminated or reduced based on your ability to pay.

Caution should be used when using a Ch 13 bankruptcy to save your house. Once your house is part of a Ch 13, it is very important to make all payments to all remaining creditors on time. Once your house payment is late after starting a court approved Ch 13, your mortgage company will ask for a “relief of stay”. Once granted (they usually are), your mortgage company can start the foreclosure process again. Also, once in a bankruptcy, the trustee of the bankruptcy will need to approve the sale of your house if you decide to sell your house. This can take 4-8 weeks. If the foreclosure process starts again because you were late on your payments and you want to sell your house, give yourself plenty of time. You do not want a foreclosure auction sale to happen because you decided too late to sell your house and couldn’t. Don’t forget you need to get court approval to sell your house once in a Ch 13 even if the bankruptcy is dismissed.

Equity Loans

Credit Union, banks and hard money lenders will give to some people based on the equity in their house and the ability to repay the loan. Credit score is usually a small factor with hard money vs an institution in determining if you can get a loan. Hard money loans typically are for 1 to 2 years and have very high interest rates. An equity loan can be a good option if you can afford a higher payment on your house.