There are two types of foreclosures the judicial and non-judicial foreclosures. Only the judicial requires the courts oversight in order to be executed. Foreclosure judgments in the favor of the plaintiff (the foreclosing party) can be attained in the three ways: after the defendant has defaulted by not answering summons and complaints; after winning a summary judgment or after winning a trial. Where it’s a case of a non-judicial foreclosure and you intend to fight the foreclosure you will have to file a lawsuit personally.
Judgment following a borrower’s default by not answering summons and complaints
The documents a foreclosure lawsuit are three: (1)Complaint for foreclosure which entails then lender’s claims underlying the lawsuit, a list of the defendants and their interests in the property and the lender’s objectives from the lawsuit usually the right to sell the property and to channel the proceeds of the sale to the mortgage debt and to request for a deficiency judgment should the proceeds fail to totally cover the debt; (2)The notice of lis pendens a document filed with a county clerk in the land records with the aim of providing notice to the public, subsequent lien holders and potential purchasers of the property that a foreclosure suit encumbers the property; and (3)The summons informs the defendants (property owner, lien holders, and judgment holder) that an answer must be filed should they wish to challenge the lawsuit. These documents are served to each of the defendants named in the foreclosure lawsuit; stating their rights and the days within which they have to respond with an answer to the allegations of the petition for foreclosure. A defendant who wishes to respond to the claims in the complaint must file an answer within this time period failure to do so, may lead to foreclosure judgment in favor of the plaintiff(s).
Summary Judgment motion
This motion is filed by the lender, asking the judge to make an immediate decision in favor of the lender; a trial follows resulting in the lender or bank gaining the possession of the property. For the homeowner, this is a position they do not want to be in, as they can only have one option to try to convince the judge that the facts of the foreclosure should be heard, and the motion for summary judgment should be denied. Most of creditors file for this motion when they are confident that all of the facts and evidence are in their favor such as lenders will have very well-documented customer contacts, additional evidence of the homeowner’s refusal or inability to make the mortgage payments and also details of the steps that were taken to bring the loan current and avoid the foreclosure.
Summary judgment can generally be filed within 20 days after the actual lawsuit has been filed. If there has been no response from the defendant; the lender is required to serve the homeowner or borrower with the notice of the hearing as well as all of the evidence or documentation that was filed with the court; before a motion is granted, most judges require that the lenders meet a significantly high level of standards.
Summary Judgment Hearing
This is the last and final hearing in a foreclosure lawsuit, where the court determines whether the lender will be granted or denied an approval to sell the property through foreclosure, the amount of money the borrower owes the lender and the date for the sale of the property is set if the approval is granted at the hearing.
Sources:
http://www.alllaw.com/articles/nolo/foreclosure/deficiency-judgments.html