The idea of losing your home can fill you with a considerable sense of despair. Unfortunately, you may find yourself among numerous other individuals who face foreclosure due to falling behind on your mortgage. This type of financial struggle can affect anyone, and many factors could add up that lead to your inability to make your payments. Though you may do your best to get your finances in order, you may still stare down the possibility of foreclosure.
Rather than simply accepting that you will lose your home, you may wish to find out information on your foreclosure defense options. In many cases, individuals choose to utilize Chapter 13 bankruptcy in hopes of keeping their homes.
Automatic stay
After filing your petition for Chapter 13 bankruptcy, an automatic stay places a hold on all creditor collection attempts. Therefore, if a lender has started foreclosure proceedings against you, those proceedings stop for the time being. You may wish to understand, however, that an automatic stay only allows you to delay the potential foreclosure and does not immediately bring it to an end.
Additionally, an automatic stay may not help if the lender attempts to have the court lift the stay and allow them to continue their foreclosure proceedings. If you have already received an advanced foreclosure notice, the time period attached to that notice continues to count down, and after that time period has passed, the lender could request to lift the stay.
Keeping your home
If you wish to keep your home when fighting against foreclosure, Chapter 13 bankruptcy rather than Chapter 7 may act as your best option. With Chapter 13, you utilize a repayment plan that allows you to pay back creditors over a longer period of time. However, you will need to have the ability to make payments on your unpaid balances as well as stay up-to-date on your current mortgage payments if you hope to avoid foreclosure.
If you have taken out additional mortgages on your home, Chapter 13 could potentially eliminate those payments altogether. Once the process reorganizes your debt, any additional mortgages could fall into the unsecured debts category. Liabilities in this category often take lowest priority, and as a result, your proceedings may discharge them entirely.
In order to ensure that you choose the bankruptcy path and foreclosure defense that best suits your circumstances, you may wish to consult with an experienced New Jersey attorney.