1.  Gather Relevant Mortgage Documents: You need to gather documents so you (and your lawyer) know the status of your loan account, and all recent activity on the account. Gather all documents received in the last 6 months from the lender, the servicer, and/or their lawyers.

2.  Check For Unopened Mail: Find and open all unopened mail that are from the lender, the servicer, and/or their lawyers.

3.  Claim Mail Being Held at Post-Office: If you’ve received and ignored any Notices of Certified Mail from your Post-Office, you must claim those immediately. If from the lender, servicer, or their lawyers, open immediately.

4.  Call to Confirm Sale Date: Call the lender or servicer to confirm whether there is a scheduled foreclosure date. This is important because it will tell you how much or how little time you have to save your home.

1.  Loan Modification Request: This works best if there is no foreclosure date yet, or if the loan modification application can be submitted at least 38 days prior to the scheduled foreclosure date. This can be used as a strategy to buy time even if you think you may not be approved for one, or intend to sell the house.   If you already submitted one a while back, demand a written decision or appeal a denial.

2.  Reinstatement Quote Request: This may help future arguments and will also help a foreclosure defense lawyer be able to quickly evaluate your options.

3.  Pay-Off Quote Request: This will help in evaluating your options.

4.  Debt-Validation and Accounting History Request: This could buy you more time especially if there’s already a foreclosure date. Ask for the complete loan history for your mortgage loan. If you end up needing a lawyer, he/she may have to make another more formal request but it’s helpful to have a trail of requests on file.

1.  Foreclosure Defense Lawyers: Get opinions from at least 2 foreclosure defense lawyers. Not all lawyers use the same tools. Most lawyers offer a free initial consultation. If not, what’s at stake here certainly makes it worthwhile to pay for an an hour of the attorney’s time. Please be aware that a real estate lawyer doesn’t automatically have experience with foreclosure defense. Ask the lawyer about his/her experience with foreclosure defense.

2.  Bankruptcy Lawyers: This will help you know ahead of time what is required to file for bankruptcy if needed. Consult with at least 2 bankruptcy lawyers. However,  we  suggest that you only use bankruptcy as a last resort.

3.  Available Options: Available options will be unique to each individual’s situation but may include the following:

Loan Modification; Reinstatement; Postponement of Foreclosure Date; Restraining Order to Stop Foreclosure; Reversal of Foreclosure (if already foreclosed). Actual available options will vary depending on the facts of each individual case. However, if you don’t learn all options, you won’t be able to make the best-informed decision for your situation.

*Our law firm rarely recommends Short Sales or Deeds-in-Lieu-of-Foreclosure because there are usually other options that benefit the homeowner more. Also, we recommend bankruptcy only as the very last resort.

1.  Foreclosure Defense Lawyers: Get opinions from at least 2 foreclosure defense lawyers. Not all lawyers use the same tools. Most lawyers offer a free initial consultation. If not, what’s at stake here certainly makes it worthwhile to pay for an an hour of the attorney’s time. Please be aware that a real estate lawyer doesn’t automatically have experience with foreclosure defense. Ask the lawyer about his/her experience with foreclosure defense.

2.  Bankruptcy Lawyers: This will help you know ahead of time what is required to file for bankruptcy if needed. Consult with at least 2 bankruptcy lawyers. However,  we  suggest that you only use bankruptcy as a last resort.

1.  Best Path First: The path of least resistance is the quickest way to get to your goal. Only escalate if it is called for. It is seldom necessary to use two strategies simultaneously without first seeing the result of the first strategy used.

2.  Shift Gears as Needed: If the first strategy doesn’t yield the desired results, or is not able to be fully implemented, move on quickly to the next best strategy for your particular situation and try that.

3.  Save the Extreme for Last: Unless it’s an emergency and you’re totally short on time, reserve extreme measures for last. This will save you money, time, effort, and a lot of headache.