When we talk about stopping a foreclosure sale, there is one key thing that you need to think about other than getting the lender to stop the sale, and that is verifying that the sale was stopped. This is something that often gets overlooked with terrible consequences.
Imagine that your sale dates in your area are every Friday, and the loss mitigator told you on Thursday night that yes, indeed the sale has been stopped or postponed. You relax knowing that you have more time to work on this and then you don’t have to tell the homeowner that their house went to sale. Next thing you know the homeowner’s calling you Friday afternoon and yelling at you because you didn’t tell them that their house went to sale. Bad situation!
You need to try and figure out all of the different foreclosing attorneys or trustees that conduct the foreclosure sales in your area, or learn where you can verify whether or not the sale was stopped. In Washington state we know most of the foreclosing attorneys, and we also have access to their websites to see whether or not the sale is been postponed. After the loss mitigator has told us that they have postponed the sale we always contact the foreclosing attorney’s office and confirm that indeed the sale has been stopped. If not, we let the foreclosing attorney know that the loss mitigator has said they will stop the sale and we also immediately contact the lost mitigator and let them know that the sale needs to be stopped because it has not yet. You need to be very proactive with this, because the loss mitigators are so busy that they will make mistakes.
Set up a system starting now where you have the contact information including phone number and website address for whoever is responsible for conducting foreclosure sales in your area.
This will save you many headaches.
