The California Foreclosure Timeline
The following time-line is applicable for non-judicial California Foreclosures under a Deed of Trust. Foreclosures begin with the Trustor (borrower) not making the monthly payments to the Beneficiary (Lender), the first missed payment is technical default, but in practical terms, most Beneficiaries do not begin the process until the third payment is missed. If the Beneficiary cannot resolve the defaulted payment amount with the Trustor through Forbearance or other Loss Mitigation measures, the Beneficiary will instruct the Trustee to begin Foreclosure proceedings.
Day 1
Record Notice of Default
Within 10 business days
Mail and publish Notice of Default
Within 1 month
Mail Notice of Default
After 3 months
Set sale date
25 days before sale date
Send notice of sale to I.R.S.(when necessary)
Within 10 days from 1st publication
Send beneficiary request for property
directions
14 days before sale date
Record Notice of Sale
7 days before sale date
If court action, 7day rule may apply
5 business days before sale date
Expiration of right to re-instate the
loan
Sale date
Property is sold to highest bidder at public auction
In California, the law says that your lender must mail you a letter of demand
(also called a Notice of Delinquency) in advance of starting
foreclosure.
This letter states that you have to pay the delinquent
payments (plus any late or legal fees) or foreclosure proceedings will
start.
After 60 - 90 days of missed payments, the lender begins
pre-foreclosure process by mailing you a Notice of Delinquency.
After 90
days of no calls and no payments from you, most lenders begin the foreclosure
process by sending you a certified letter called a Notice of Default
(N.O.D.).
There's a 90 day quiet period following the date they send the
letter and then a trustee on your lender's behalf will set the foreclosure sale
date if you have not sent in payments to bring your loan current.
Keep in
mind every situation is different becuse every borrower, every lender, and every
loan is different.
In our case, our lender would not agree to any "work
out" alternatives for our loan until we were already 90 days behind on
payments.
Then, they issed us a demand letter after we were 120 days late.
Like we said, each lender is different with their own set of policies and
procedures for how they handle foreclosures.
Below you will see a sample timeline for a homeowner in California where their lender sends out a demand letter after 90 days of missed payments (delinquencies).
Be aware! In California any lender can file a
Notice to Cure Delinquency as soon as you are late one day on your payment. Now
that's really unlikely, but possible.
Most lenders understand that
sometimes people forget to send in a payment by mistake and that late payments
are to be expected every once in awhile.
It's typical for lenders to file
a demand letter after 90 days, but some will do it as early as 60 days and some
as late as 120 days.
Like we said...be aware they can do it immediately,
but 90 days after is customary.
What we hope you're getting from all this
is that the california foreclosure timeline can be dangerously fast if you're
unprepared and don't take action to stop your foreclosure quickly.
Now
it's time we told you about Your
Alternatives to Avoid Foreclosure - Step 3 of the process so you can make a
decision about what you need to do and get into action.