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How Long Til Foreclosure?

By Cathy Moran

when will foreclosure happen?Everyone who has made the painful decision to let an unaffordable house go to foreclosure wants to know how long before they have to get out. While the statutory foreclosure process in California takes a little more than 4 months, if the the creditor is perfectly efficient, creditors aren’t perfectly efficient, and often seem to be deliberately dilatory. The foreclosure process stretches out. But how long?

I got a good data point today from a client in a pending Chapter 13 filed late in 2009. The client has not made a payment in 17 months. The confirmed Chapter 13 plan provides that the debtor will surrender the house and grants the creditor relief from stay. The lender just denied a loan modification. And the creditor has not yet taken the first, legally mandated step in the foreclosure process!

So, even if the lender starts foreclosure tomorrow, it will be September, almost two years from the filing of the bankruptcy case before title to the house changes hands. And I am fairly confident that the lender will not initiate foreclosure proceeding immediately, and even more confident that they will not be perfectly efficient in doing so.

The future is not predictable, and what is true today may not be true tomorrow, but it is clear that lenders are not in a hurry to own more California real estate.

Filed Under: Real property & mortgages Tagged With: California, default, foreclosure, sale

About The Soapbox

You've arrived at the Bankruptcy Soapbox, a resource of bankruptcy information and consumer law.

Soapbox is a companion site to Bankruptcy in Brief, where I try to be largely explanatory and even handed (Note I said "try").

Here, I allow myself to tell stories and express strong opinions on how I think law should work for the consumer and small businesses when it comes to debt.

Moran Law Group
Bankruptcy specialists for individuals and small businesses in the San Francisco Bay Area

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