Do you need bankruptcy protection to save your home from foreclosure? Trying to do this yourself can cause major problems for you; hire a competent bankruptcy attorney to get you the help that you need to save your home.
I just got a call from a man whose 73-year-old father’s home is going to be foreclosed by Wells Fargo the following day due to a large mortgage delinquency while the father was ill and unable to work. Normally, we could have filed an emergency chapter 13 bankruptcy and the father could have either paid the arrearage through the chapter 13 plan, or applied for our bankruptcy court’s loan modification program.
However, the father had already filed two previous chapter 13 bankruptcy cases within the the past 12 months. A third bankruptcy filing within 12 months does not provide any legal protection from foreclosure (or from any other creditor actions) until the court enters an order granting a motion to impose that protection, known as the automatic stay. Wells Fargo had hired a knowledgeable creditor attorney to foreclose, so it’s unlikely that the fact that the automatic stay would not apply until after a motion would be granted would go unnoticed. The father was not willing to take that risk, and resigned himself to letting go of his home and moving on.
The lesson here is that if the father had hired a competent bankruptcy attorney instead of trying to file a successful chapter 13 case himself, he would almost certainly been able to save his home. So if you are in foreclosure, contact a bankruptcy attorney today to see if you can save your home.