One of the main points it is important to focus on in terms of advice to homeowners facing foreclosure is that they should keep up with the legal process as much as humanly possible. This might involve looking up court records, receiving copies of documents that have been filed by the attorneys in the case, and even attending hearings before the judge. But unless homeowners keep themselves informed of what is going on during the foreclosure, they may find themselves making hasty decisions based on incomplete knowledge.

For example, take the case of the attorneys filing a motion to postpone the scheduled sheriff sale. Until this is done, even homeowners who have been attempting to get more time to stop foreclosure may have no idea that they are being another opportunity. If a sale is scheduled in the very near future, and the bank then decides to postpone it, they will more than likely not inform the foreclosure victims of this decision until after the sale would have taken place to begin with. Homeowners, though, can usually find out directly from the court system if their sale has been canceled for the time being.

The attorneys in the case will usually file a motion to stop the sale and request that it be rescheduled within thirty days or so. That is why banks, soon after making the decision to postpone, will already have a new foreclosure auction date; the attorneys just reschedule the home to be sold at the closest date within the coming month. In effect, this means that the homeowners have asked for more time to save their home, and the lender has agreed to delay a scheduled sheriff sale for a short period of time in order to give their clients the benefit of the doubt and all them another chance to save their home. At that point, the lender has ordered its local attorneys handling the foreclosure to move the court to stop the sale and postpone/reschedule it.

So, until the sheriff sale is rescheduled and the house is sold, the homeowners will have some time to work on another solution. Of course, the lender will want to see some kind of proof that a solution is being worked on even before deciding whether to postpone or not, but homeowners can provide a minimal amount of paperwork and a letter explaining their intentions. For instance, maybe they have found someone to buy their house, or they are working on a qualifying for a loan modification or forbearance agreement. All they really need to present to the bank is the offer and supporting documents explaining why they fell behind and what is being done to fix the situation.

But, until the house is sold at auction, the foreclosure victims can keep living in the property. The bank, since it is the plaintiff in the foreclosure lawsuit, has great leeway to extend the sale or work out a solution out of the courts. They can dismiss the case at any time if the homeowners are able to avoid foreclosure, or they can ignore any further requests to stop the sheriff sale, if they do not believe the homeowners will be able to work out the difficulties.

In a small number of cases, homeowners may find that the sale has been postponed even without their knowledge or intervention. Although this is quite uncommon, it deserves a passing mention. What most likely happens is that the attorneys have entered the postponement with the court if they found out that they made a mistake somewhere in the foreclosure process. If they proceed with the sale despite not giving notice, not following the law, or otherwise missing something important, they will probably just start the sheriff sale process over again and not risk having the foreclosure reversed. But again, this is pretty rare.

The most important element in saving a home from foreclosure is the time needed to work out a solution. Homeowners are free to request as much time as they need, and banks are free to extend sale dates as many times as they want. But, it is ultimately up to the homeowners to keep track of when their home will be sold out from under them, and it is important that they understand how to get a sale delayed. Even knowing how to do this, though, is not enough. They also need to keep track of the lender through the court system and make sure they have been given the time they requested, and they need to learn this as early as possible, in order to make the most effective use of their options to stop foreclosure.

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