Your home is most likely your most significant single asset. It is a place where you and your family reside. It is the place where you can escape the rest of the world. Your own little castle. If you fall behind on your mortgage, you may face the situation where a bank will bring a foreclosure legal action to take your home back. This will create enormous stress and aggravation upon you and your family.
The legal system and especially the issues, tactics, and procedures involved in a foreclosure lawsuit are not generally known to the public at large. There are specific time restraints. There are obligations of the bank to file legal documents, court appearances that must be made, and applications that can be submitted to the court, and legal defenses that can be asserted.
What Can You Do To Save Your Home?
The most logical answer is to hire a foreclosure attorney with extensive experience in litigating with financial institutions for the purpose of saving family’s homes, obtaining mortgage modifications, and investigating improper bank practices such as bad assignments, and predatory lending.
Receiving Foreclosure Notice From The Bank
A financial institution or bank is supposed to provide you with 90 days notice that your home is going into foreclosure. After this 90 day period, they can serve you with a Summons and Complaint. When served with a Summons and Complaint in a foreclosure proceeding, you have 20 days to file an Answer with opposing counsel and the court, if served personally, and 30 days if served by any other means. This is an important statute of limitations which can have a major effect on the foreclosure lawsuit.
You must submit an Answer to the Summons and Complaint in the proper legal form or else you default in responding to the lawsuit. This can cause serious consequences for you and your family. Failure to submit the appropriate Answer with affirmative defenses and counterclaims within the statute of limitations time period for responding to a Summons and Complaint, eliminates your ability to legally defend the foreclosure lawsuit. It is therefore extremely important when served with a Summons and Complaint in a foreclosure that you contact a foreclosure defense lawyer to discuss your options. The early involvement of a foreclosure defense lawyer can save you from losing your home.
Improper Bank Practices
The writer of this article has dealt with scores of cases in which banks have been involved in all types of improper bank practices. Robo-signers executing inappropriate documents are one example. Bad assignments from one financial institution to another is a second example. Violations of Federal, State, and New York City banking laws with regard to the handling of the foreclosure or the underwriting of the loan are additional examples of potential defenses in a foreclosure lawsuit. Some of these defenses, if properly submitted, can stop the lawsuit in its tracks, and in some occasions, even get the case completely dismissed.
Faced With Foreclosure? Call Us!
The attorneys at the Law Offices of Schlissel DeCorpo deal with foreclosure lawsuits and foreclosure issues virtually every day. Our firm litigates cases throughout the Metropolitan New York area, on Long Island, the five boroughs, the City of New York and Westchester. We have an unparalleled history of success in keeping our clients in their homes. Even in situations where the bank or financial institution is right and our clients are completely wrong, the average case handled by our office takes between 3 and 5 years to get through the courts.
Call us for a free consultation. Our phones are monitored 24/7 and we offer free consultations to prospective clients. Our phone numbers are 1-800-344-6431, 516-561-6645, and 718-350-2802.
