JUDICIAL FORECLOSURE
Judicial foreclosure occurs under supervision of the court. It is a more borrower/homeowner-friendly process that requires legal filings, court-imposed notices, timelines, and hearings. In a judicial foreclosure jurisdiction, the mortgagor goes to court to initiate foreclosure proceedings. It can take several months or even longer for a judicial foreclosure. Another advantage to the homeowner is that any legal defenses to the foreclosure may be raised (without the owner having to file a lawsuit). Judicial foreclosure proceedings are required in Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, New Jersey, New Mexico (sometimes), New York, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma (if the homeowner requests), Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota (if the homeowner requests), Vermont, and Wisconsin. In most cases, the borrower must be more than 120 days delinquent in payments before the lender can start a foreclosure. The lender sends a letter, notifying the borrower of their intent to begin foreclosure proceedings and specifying a period within which the borrower must respond (usually between 20 and 30 days). Regardless of which kind of foreclosure process your state mandates, unless you respond, the chances are excellent that the foreclosure will go through. The court will issue a default judgment that authorizes the lender to sell the home. If the borrower responds, a hearing is scheduled in which the borrower can tell a judge why foreclosure shouldn’t be permitted. The better the defense, the longer the process will drag out. If the court decides in the lender’s favor, it will enter a judgment ordering the sale of the home to satisfy the debt. If the property is not sold at the foreclosure sale, ownership goes to the lender. Even when the borrower loses ownership of the
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