Pre-Foreclosure
This is the minimum process in GA. Georgia is a judicial and non-judicial foreclosure state. This means that they, the bank, can either take you to court (judicial) or follow steps to foreclose outside of going through the court system (non-judicial). Typically banks choose the obvious pick of non-judicial foreclosure.
Due to new laws coming into place in 2014, the bank now has rules to follow. If you have missed a payment on your mortgage, the bank or mortgage servicer must attempt to contact you by phone within 36 days to go over and discuss your loss mitigation options. Also, the bank or mortgage servicer must contact you in writing about loss mitigation within 45 days of missing a payment. Whenever you miss an additional payment, the mortgage servicer must contact you within 36 days of that event. The mortgage servicer cannot start the foreclosure process until the homeowner is more than 120 days overdue on their payments due to these new Dodd-Frank changes. This 120-day period allows the homeowner to complete a loss mitigation application if they choose. Here is a great article on this 120 day period.(https://www.lawyers.com/legal-info/bankruptcy/foreclosures/delaying-foreclosure-the-dodd-frank-act-120-day-rule.html)
Georgia is one of the shortest foreclosure states in America. After this 120 day period, the mortgage servicer can now make its official foreclosure notice. After these 120 days of missed payments they can get a date set for foreclosure. The foreclosure notice is typically put in the local newspaper for 4 weeks leading up to the sale of the property at public auction. Auction is usually held at the county the property is located in.
The bank or mortgage servicer will send notices of non payment after each month of delinquency. But before that typically the owner of the residence knows that in the near future, they will not be able to make a payment. This is what we call pre-pre-foreclosure. This is before anything is reported to the credit bureaus, before the bank knows, and even sometimes your own family. This is the part where you have the most options available. Some fail to begin to act and this leads to delinquency, headache and hardship.
Forbearance: Forbearance is one option that you could do concerning your mortgage payments. This is where the bank allows you to pause your payments until a later date down the line. This is good for homeowners that have a tight budget due to the ongoing pandemic and would realistically suffer from the debt of making the payment.
Loan Modification: A loan modification is where you call your lender's loss mitigation department and ask for a loan modification. This is another way of helping your situation. Some banks will lower your payments to a more manageable figure as well as lower your interest rate or extend your years on your mortgage. When doing this, you have to stay on top of the bank and make sure they have not lost paperwork or need more paperwork that they did not request. The term "loss mitigation" refers to a loan servicer's duty to mitigate or lessen the loss to the investor (the loan owner) resulting from a borrower's default. Given the costs that an investor must bear through the foreclosure process, loss mitigation is intended to be beneficial for the investor. Loss mitigation is also supposed to benefit the borrower. Some loss mitigation options, such as a loan modification, forbearance agreement, and repayment plan, allow the borrower to stay in the home. Other options, like a short sale or deed in lieu of foreclosure, help a borrower give up the property without going through foreclosure (nolo.com).
Deed in lieu: A “deed in lieu” is short for “deed in lieu of foreclosure”. This is where you call the bank and tell them that you can no longer afford the payment and would like to give the house back to the bank. Careful on this one because banks look at this and see it as a style of foreclosure. This could stay as a mark on your credit for a couple of years and you could be denied another mortgage for some time.
Short sale: A short sale is where you may not be able to sell the house for more than what is left on the mortgage. This could be due to multiple reasons. Some of the reasons are the home being in disrepair, value has dropped, behind on payments, ect. This is one you also need to be careful about. Banks also look at this one as a style of foreclosure and could be a mark on your credit that extends out for a couple of years.
At Elevated Realty we understand if you are in foreclosure, you are going through a tough time trying to make your mortgage payments. We would love to offer you the quickest possible solution to help you get back on your feet, which is selling your house. We are not realtors (we do work with some), consultants or attorneys. We are a company that, with our way of purchasing properties, have been able to help people in the foreclosure situation. We will give you a couple of different offers to buy your house so you won’t just have one take it or leave it offer. One way we would help, to let the cat out of the bag, is we would make up your backed payments and bring your mortgage current, which the banks will now see as a “performing mortgage”.
As you may know, having a foreclosure on your credit can cause a lot of issues now but also in the future if you were wanting to qualify for a mortgage. The sad part is, your credit can be impacted on the negative side for 7-10 years. So purchasing or even renting may pose a problem for you due to the foreclosure. We believe that we can put together an offer for you to avoid the foreclosure, get money in your pocket, and save your credit!
Even if we aren’t able to buy your house, or you are not interested in selling at this time, we would love to share our knowledge with you on your options in selling your house in the future or keeping your house.
We can pay a very good price and close quickly.