Oppenheim Law’s Summer School: When The Foreclosure Notice Hits Your Door

This is foreclosure defense attorney and legal blogger, Roy Oppenheim, “From the Trenches.” My last legal blog we talked about how…what one does when you’re about to get served by legal process in a foreclosure. And since we’ve talked about that, I think the next thing we now need to talk about is, you have been served, what do you do? And let me just go over that with you real quickly.

In most states, you have 20 or 30 days to respond to the foreclosure complaint. In Florida, you have exactly 20 days and if you don’t respond, you will default. And ultimately, the bank’s gonna be able to mow you over and get you out of your house pretty quickly. I think the worst thing that you can ever do is not respond, and I think it’s very important that in a perfect world, that you do obtain competent counsel, an attorney, who knows what they’re doing in the area of foreclosure defense to assist you. But at a bare minimum, even if you just write to the court, that could be deemed an answer and certainly that could prevent the bank from basically getting a default judgment against you, a clerk’s default judgment against you, which is the worst thing.

The other worst thing is that a lot of people, when they get served, particularly if they’re new to this country, if they’re immigrants or if they’re not citizens, get scared that now, because they’re in the legal process somehow, that that’s gonna affect their immigration status. And I need to tell you that the worst thing that you can do is leave your home when you are in foreclosure. There is no reason whatsoever why you should not stand your ground, and why you should not engage the bank in some sort of mortal combat in terms of making them prove that they have the right to foreclose upon you. That they have the standing to be in court, and that they have not been engaged with effectively unclean hands in their conduct in attempting to force you out of your home.

And so, it’s really important that you, A, get counsel, and that B, you stand your ground and do not walk away. If you follow those two simple rules, you will find that there will be numerous opportunities and options for you to end up engaging the bank in some meaningful conversation that will allow for an ultimate resolution of your situation. So, my suggestion is to get good counsel. If you’re in Florida, feel free to call our firm. Roy Oppenheim, “From the Trenches,” have a good day.