What to Do If You Are Served with a Foreclosure Lawsuit
New York foreclosures are judicial, which means the foreclosing bank has to file a lawsuit in court. When you receive a NY foreclosure summons you must respond or risk being left out of the process entirely. If you choose to not respond or skip the court proceeding, you can guarantee the lender will take full advantage of this and in many instances the court will enter a default judgment, which will set in motion the lender’s right to foreclose on your home.
A ‘response’ from you essentially means that you are answering the summons. You will file an official response with the court that is based on your particular circumstances or defenses for arguing against it. There are several options here and our skilled, seasoned foreclosure defense attorneys can help you decide which is best for you. Let’s consider a few.
‘Lack of Standing’ is a popular defense when you seek to argue that the foreclosure filer is not the legal owner of the mortgage. ‘Payment Made’ is exactly as it sounds. In this defense you are arguing that you have made your payments but the payments were not credited properly. ‘No Notice’ would be used when you are informing the court that you were never given the required 90-day Pre-Foreclosure Notice that is mandated by New York law. The ‘Active Military’ response would be used when the property owner is an active duty member of the military and thereby qualifies for strict protections in accordance with state and/or federal laws. And finally, ‘Improper Serving’ would be the type of response you would ‘answer’ with when the summons and complaint was not properly served and therefore did not follow the required procedure.
There are other options available to you as well, but the bottom line is that a successful response and defense may render the lender unable to continue with their foreclosure, or at the very least—slow it down, which might then afford you the extra time to make other arrangements, such as filing bankruptcy or negotiating some type of mortgage modification.
With a loan modification, as with other mortgage relief scenarios, you have options; though there is no guarantee that any one particular person will qualify as cases are considered carefully and individually. The government offers HAMP, which stands for Home Affordable Modification Program. With HAMP you do not have to already be delinquent on your mortgage payments in order to qualify, so it could be an option for some. That said however, an abundance of lenders will not consider a homeowner for this program until the homeowner has begun missing their payments. And to qualify for HAMP, you must prove that the property is your primary residence.
