Many homeowners who are behind in payments are surprised when they find out the bank is planning on selling their home out from under them to satisfy the defaulted loan. They feel that the foreclosure process is moving too fast, and that they are being notified of the sheriff sale with too little time to plan any alternatives to stop foreclosure. It may be, though, that the bank has had the foreclosure sale scheduled for weeks, without the homeowners ever being aware of the fact. This article is meant to help foreclosure victims learn where they can go to find out if the bank is planning on selling the property.

To begin with, if the homeowners are worried about a sheriff sale of the property, then they are probably painfully aware of the fact that they are behind in payments -- perhaps by a few months, sometimes by as much as a year or more. If they are reasonably far behind in the payments (typically 3-6 months), the mortgage company has probably hired an attorney's office to pursue the foreclosure against the clients. This is because lenders use local law offices to sue the homeowners in the county court. Some law offices are very large, covering entire states, and some are very small offices serving only a few townships. In either case, as soon as the attorneys become involved, they will begin sending letters to the homeowners to collect on the mortgage, and will proceed towards scheduling a sheriff sale of the house.

Calling the lender's attorneys can be the single best source of information about the current status of the foreclosure of the property. The attorneys will know exactly when the sheriff sale of the property is, and can forward a request from the homeowners for a postponement of the auction directly to the correct contact at the bank. Lenders are more likely to be on good terms with their lawyers than they are with their clients, by the time the foreclosure process is in full gear, and the attorneys may have more up to date information about the process than the lender, since the lawyers are the ones actually filing the foreclosure paperwork with the courts on behalf of the lender.

Alternatively, the homeowners can call the county sheriffs department for information regarding the date of the sheriff sale, as they are usually the ones who handle the foreclosure auctions directly, and transfer ownership of the property once the sale is completed (specifics vary by state and county). The county sheriffs office will maintain schedules of when properties have sold or when they are going up for sale, and can give the foreclosure victims the date they are looking for, or inform them that no sale has yet been scheduled.

If the homeowners need more time to save their home from foreclosure, they may want to try getting the auction date postponed, so there is a chance to find a loan to stop foreclosure or sell the home to a private investor or friend/family member. The attorneys office can forward the request directly to the lender, who will make a decision on whether to postpone the sale or not. If the postponement is granted, then the lender tells the lawyers to take the sale off of the schedule with the county and will reschedule it for a different date.

But to find out if a sheriff sale has been scheduled for a property in foreclosure, homeowners should contact either of two offices: the lender's attorneys, and the county sheriffs department. They are the ones who will be handling the sale most directly, so they will know the exact date of the sheriff sale. Knowing when a sheriff sale is scheduled will give the homeowners a clear time-frame for completing any of their plans to stop foreclosure, or for requesting a postponement beyond the original foreclosure auction date.

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