Will I Lose My House? - Pennsylvania Mortgage Foreclosure
(Published in the Spring/Summer of 2009 Newsletter)
With the recession and the credit crisis, many people are having their homes foreclosed on, often through no fault of their own but due to a layoff or some other unavoidable financial crisis.
If you are in this situation, there are things that can be done. First, try to sell the home so as to cash out the equity in the home. It is important to act quickly, however, since the equity will diminish drastically or even be eliminated if the home is foreclosed upon to conclusion. Before a home can be foreclosed upon in Pennsylvania, there are certain notices that must be sent. If you receive the first notice, typically an Act 91 Notice, you should take that notice to an attorney and try to get the attorney to work something out with the mortgage lender to try to keep the property from actually going into foreclosure.
In Pennsylvania, until the mortgage foreclosure suit has actually been started in the courts and the mortgage borrower has actually been served with a law suit by the sheriff’s department, the mortgage lender cannot add attorney’s fees, court costs or other mortgage foreclosure costs. This is important, because these mortgage foreclosure costs and attorney’s fees add thousands of dollars to the payoff and/or cure amounts and eat up the borrower’s equity very quickly.
Until the time of the actual sheriff’s sale, the mortgage borrower has the right to reinstate the mortgage, even though they are behind on the payments. However, this becomes increasingly difficult because the cure amount grows quickly once mortgage foreclosure has begun and the mortgage foreclosure costs are added on.
The bottom line: contact a lawyer as early in the mortgage foreclosure process as possible. Contact us at Menges, McLaughlin & Kalasnik, P.C. at www.yourlawfirmforlife.com or by giving us a call.
The Real Estate attorneys at Menges, McLaughlin & Kalasnik, P.C. can help. Contact us now by calling, toll free, 1-866-464-5297.