Oppenheim Law and Foreclosure Complaints

Hi. This is Roy Oppenheim, real estate and foreclosure defense attorney. I want to talk a little bit today about something that’s going on in the courts when people are not properly served by a foreclosure complaint, and then for some reason, they decide to file some document in the court still asserting their defense in some way. When you do that, unfortunately, what you’re doing is you’re consenting to the jurisdiction and waiving your right to have the bank properly serve you. Remember when you get served in a foreclosure complaint, the bank has to literally serve you at your door. They have to serve someone that’s living in your home that’s over the age of like 15 years old, and they can’t just drop it there and leave. They have to literally hand it to someone. But if, in fact, they don’t do that properly and they leave it on your car or they just throw it from a car to your doorstep, they haven’t properly served you. But if you then file something and you don’t file it properly, you’re consenting to the jurisdiction of the court. It’s best that you not file anything. It’s best that you speak to an attorney. But at the very, very least, you want to file a limited appearance for the sole purpose of quashing the service of process. It’s a little bit technical. I don’t think people should do this on their own. But the last thing they should do is ever file something when they have not been properly served. We’re seeing a lot of folks doing that, and they’re trying to be their own lawyer, and they’re really just making it worse for themselves. So I highly recommend that you pick up the phone and you call us, and we’ll give you the guidance that you need. Roy Oppenheim from the trenches. Have a great day.