If you have received a notice from your lender that they intend to pursue a foreclosure action, you have legal rights. However, you must act for these legal rights to be protected. If you do nothing, the lender can foreclose, regardless of whether they have followed the law or respected your rights. You should consult with a foreclosure lawyer to discuss your own situation to learn whether you can fight the bank’s attempt to take your home. Even if you do not intend to contest the foreclosure, you still need legal help to protect yourself.
People have a tendency to try to do everything that they can to shy away from a financial problem instead of addressing it. If you have fallen behind on your mortgage, you will need to take some sort of action. Whether it is negotiating a solution with your lender or challenging the foreclosure, you cannot be passive because the problem will not go away on its own. You must deal with the bank within the timeframe provided by law, or else you will lose the right.
Contact a Brooklyn foreclosure attorney as soon as you believe foreclosure might be a possibility. Lawyer R. Ariel Poltielov is ready to assist you and answer your foreclosure action.
Foreclosure is a judicial process in New York. To foreclose on your home, the lender will need to go through the entire process and obtain an order from a judge. Like any legal process, you are entitled to due process. In your case, due process means that you have the right to be heard by a judge before any order is entered against you. The foreclosure will not be final until that point.
Under New York law, the lender is legally obligated to send you a notice at least ninety days prior to the point where they can begin a court case against you. The notice will inform you that you are in default on your mortgage, and the lender informs you that they intend to begin the legal process.
The purpose of this notice is partially to allow you to begin working with the lender to potentially avert the foreclosure. Another one of your rights is to have a conference with the lender once they have initiated the legal proceedings against you. Although they are not obligated to accept any offer that you make, you have the ability to propose a settlement with the lender, allowing you to keep your home. You may have several settlement conferences while the legal proceedings are pending.
In addition, the foreclosure notice will also allow you to begin preparing your own defenses in case there is a legal case. For example, the lender may have violated federal or New York laws pertaining to truth in lending. The lender may have engaged in high-pressure sales tactics, or they may not have disclosed all of the key terms of the loan before you signed the documents. The bank could have issued a loan that contained financially abusive terms that are against the law. All of these are substantive defenses to foreclosure that you will waive if you do not pursue them now.
You can also raise defenses about the procedure involved in the foreclosure that include:
Once the lender has filed a foreclosure complaint in court, New York law limits the amount of time that you have to respond. You only have thirty days to file your answer, which will include your defenses to the foreclosure, if you were served by mail. If you were served in person, you will only have twenty days to respond. Your foreclosure attorney will need time to prepare the answer, especially if you intend to fight.
If you do not file the answer in time (your foreclosure lawyer can request an extension to the deadline if there are extenuating circumstances), the lender may be able to obtain a default judgment. A default judgment means that you no longer have the ability or right to challenge the foreclosure in court.
Even if there were legal problems with the foreclosure, you will no longer have the legal means to raise them to a court because the judgment issued by the court is final. You cannot file an appeal because you lost the right to speak up on your own behalf. The lender can proceed with the foreclosure, and they will have the right to take your home. In this case, your silence will be counted as your answer in the eyes of the court.
As you can see, there is a paramount importance placed on acting when you have the ability to do so. From your standpoint, you should contact a foreclosure defense lawyer as soon as you can to determine whether you can either work with your lender to reach a solution or challenge the foreclosure itself. Time is of the essence in a foreclosure action because a court will not wait for you to defend yourself.
You do not need to wait to receive a foreclosure notice to get help from an attorney. You may consider getting legal help when you have fallen behind on your mortgage to see if you have any options that can help you avoid foreclosure in the first place. Being proactive is the best course of defense.
Contact foreclosure attorney R. Ariel Poltielov to discuss your situation and learn your options and next steps. We are standing by to help you. You can schedule a free initial consultation by completing our online form or by calling our office today at (718) 520-0085.
