The sad truth is that lenders, their attorneys, and many foreclosure scammers at risk of foreclosure benefit from the fact that most homeowners are typically unaware of the foreclosure process or their rights. Did you know that nearly 95% of Florida homeowners do nothing to defend their foreclosure lawsuit? Unfortunately, this is the quickest and safest way to lose your home or investment.
You have rights
The first and foremost thing to know when facing foreclosure is that you have rights both inside and outside the courtroom. Florida foreclosure is a civil lawsuit, and just like any party in any other lawsuit, you have legal rights to protect you. Additionally, lenders and their agents must be licensed and adhere to a complex system of local, state, and federal laws and regulations designed to protect you as a borrower. Chances are that the protections afforded you as a party to litigation and your rights as a borrower will help you defend your home. However, you must take steps to exercise these rights.
Lenders make mistakes
Lenders make mistakes. Lender lawyers make mistakes. Common mistakes are:
Missing signatures on important documents
Lost papers, including the original note or gaps in the assignments (watch out for “recovery claims” on your papers as this is an important indicator that could mean your lender has lost important documents required for foreclosure)
Missed deadlines or failure to submit required documents
Incomplete / inaccurate credit law information (which may even give you the option to withdraw the loan)
Hidden fees or illegal interest rates (usually rare, but they do!)
Improper crediting of borrower payments
Mistakes can prevent the lender from foreclosure on your home, give you a viable counterclaim against the lender, or even give you the option to liquidate your loan. And mistakes aren’t as rare as you might think. In the heyday of lending, many loans were processed automatically, then pooled in securitization pools and sold on the open market. This means that credits have been carried over between 1 and 8 or 9 times! When you understand the context in which many of these loans were made, it is easy to understand how many assignments or lost notes there are.
In the current foreclosure crisis, lender lawyers are handling very large numbers of cases, often for low flat fees, and are extremely overworked. These conditions encourage missteps, minor errors, and major errors that can result in foreclosure proceedings being extended or foreclosure halted entirely options to stop foreclosure. If homeowners don’t fight back or don’t know how to fight back, it makes the work of lawyers a lot easier. If more and more homeowners decided to stand up for their legal rights, these lawyers would have to work much more intensively, which in any case makes it even more difficult to meet the necessary paperwork and deadlines. The current model works well when most homeowners are unaware of their rights and do not fight back. It is in a lender’s best interest to foreclose your home as quickly and easily as possible. This is not going to happen if you are fighting foreclosure.
Foreclosing your home takes a long time if you are defending foreclosure
Defending your foreclosure can ease the time pressures you may be feeling right now. Foreclosure can be a very quick process – from filing to auctioning in just 45 days – if the homeowner doesn’t make the effort to appeal the case. But when there are legitimate legal defenses, it takes time for the court to figure everything out. The courts are extremely secure due to all of the foreclosure cases on the file. It is common for homeowners to stay in their homes for a year or more (even up to three years is possible) while defending foreclosure. The time it takes to battle your foreclosure can be all of the time it takes to refinance, negotiate a workout, negotiate a change, or sell your home on your own terms to get a foreclosure altogether to avoid.