After years of making payments on a property, a New York homeowner will feel strongly about protecting that investment. After all, no one wants to lose out on years of home equity due to short-term financial hardship. People may let their other payments fall behind, start second jobs or even reduce their standard of living in an attempt to protect their investment in their primary residence.
Unfortunately, it may only take a few months of financial challenges to leave someone at risk of foreclosure and the loss of their home. Those facing foreclosure often feel hopeless, but it is actually possible to go to court and defend against an attempted foreclosure. Homeowners often aren’t aware of the rules in place to protect them and what they have invested in their homes. There are many different viable means of preventing foreclosure, and the two below are among the most common.
Show a deviation from state rules
New York requires that lenders provide advance notice to homeowners regarding foreclosure. If, for example, someone does not receive a 90-day pre-foreclosure notice, the homeowner could use that oversight or mistake by the lender to fight back against the foreclosure proceedings. Any significant deviation from technical requirements might leave a lender unable to complete the foreclosure process should the borrower point out those errors, oversights or mistakes.
Prove that someone sent payments
There are many scenarios in which homeowners may have made a good faith effort to fulfill their required obligations to the lender but face foreclosure anyway. Issues with account management on the lender’s side might mean that they failed to credit a few payments to the right account. Changes in payment processing might mean that the homeowner sent checks monthly to an old address, which resulted in a delay in the lender receiving payments. Any documentation showing that the homeowner made the allegedly missed payments or retained the funds for those payments could help them more effectively respond to the foreclosure proceedings.
Going over the mortgage itself and the circumstances leading to foreclosure in depth can help a homeowner plan the most potentially effective response when facing legal consequences for falling behind on their mortgage payments.