If you are behind on your mortgage payments, have been served with a notice of foreclosure letter, or have been served with a mortgage foreclosure complaint, you have a very short time to respond.
New Jersey Foreclosure laws allow a homeowner and borrower only thirty-five (35) days to respond to a foreclosure complaint once the complaint is filed. Any delay may make your situation worse, and if a borrower or homeowner fails to do anything at all, they face the possibility of losing their home without a fight. Unfortunately, too many homeowners facing foreclosure do not respond to the complaint and thereby doom their chances at saving their homes.
Do not let this be you. Reach out to our offices as soon as possible for a consultation. We provide legal services to help keep your house including:
- Foreclosure Defense
- Bankruptcy
- Loan Modifications
Bankruptcy
Bankruptcy allows people who cannot afford to pay their debts a legal pathway to a fresh financial start. A well-defined set of laws and court oversight provide for a predictable and organized way to handle debts. Depending on the circumstances of your individual case, the bankruptcy system can stop collections, wipe out debt, establish a court-ordered payment plan, reduce interest, or avoid foreclosure. If you are struggling to pay your debts, bankruptcy is usually the strongest and most reliable tool to get you back in control of your financial life.
There are many common misconceptions about bankruptcy, and just as many pitfalls for those unfamiliar with the law. If you are considering bankruptcy, consult with a qualified bankruptcy attorney. Often, you can save yourself time, money, and frustration by understanding your options and coming up with a comprehensive plan early.
Meeting with a bankruptcy lawyer does not commit you to filing bankruptcy, but a good lawyer will help you evaluate your options and create a plan that works for you.
Foreclosure Defense
New Jersey is known as a judicial foreclosure jurisdiction, meaning that foreclosures are done through a court process and are overseen by judges. This gives a better opportunity to defend your equity in the home or even keep your home when compared to states that still rely upon non-judicial foreclosure processes.
Strategies for defense depend on whether or not you wish to keep the home.
If you wish to keep the home, then our office can help in challenging the lender’s standing/ownership of the mortgage, raising the statute of limitations, evaluating your mortgage servicer for mistakes, evaluating your loan for predatory lending practices, evaluating any previously rejected loan modification requests, and even filing for bankruptcy protection, just to name a few.
Where your mortgage servicer made mistakes in billing, collecting payment, disbursing funds, or providing customer service, you may be entitled to damages under a federal regulation known as Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act’s Mortgage Servicing Rule. 12 C.F.R. § 1024. Identifying your servicer’s mistakes are incredibly valuable to the foreclosure defense.
Mortgage lenders are required to have made a reasonable and good faith determination that you, the potential borrower, had a reasonable ability to repay the loan, under the federal regulation known as the Ability to Repay/Qualified Mortgage Rule. 12 C.F.R. § 1024. When the lender’s compliance can be refuted, your foreclosure defense is strengthened.
If you had submitted a loan modification agreement (see below) in the past but received a denial, it is possible that the denial came without the servicer’s compliance with federal regulations for loss mitigation procedures. Examples include the servicer failing to timely inform you of additional information needed after receiving the application and the servicer filing a foreclosure action while your loan modification application was still under review. 12 C.F.R. § 1024. Such findings will strengthen the foreclosure defense.
If you no longer wish to own the home, then our office can help in negotiating a short sale or deed in leu of foreclosure.
But remember, if you do not respond to the foreclosure complaint, or hire an attorney to do so, then you will face a default judgement and waive your rights to any defense.
Loan Modification
Our office uses this strategy to renegotiate your mortgage amount, duration of the loan, interest rate, and monthly payment amount. This is often the best step to take when you wish to keep the home but do not qualify for bankruptcy and/or have other assets that you do not wish to liquidate. You will need to continue making payments on the mortgage, at the newly reduced amount, along with satisfying any past owed payments.
If you would like to defend against foreclosure action, the first step is filing an answer to the complaint within the thirty-five days allowed. This will prevent the court from awarding your lender a default judgment, which will allow your lender to foreclosure on your property.
The sooner you reach out to our office, the better your outcome may be. Do not wait until it’s too late.
Reach out for a free consultation.