Depending on where you live and what kind of mortgage you have, your lender might be able to sell your home at sheriff sale without taking you to court. When you originally got your loan that you are now in default of, you may have authorized your lender to take your home and sell it.

If you are unsure if the lender has to sue you or just let you know they're selling your property, go grab your loan documents right now and let us walk you through finding out what your lender will do next.

Step 1. The first thing you want to do is locate your state's foreclosure laws to determine if your lender can use Judicial Foreclosure or Non-Judicial Foreclosure procedures. If your state only allows Judicial Foreclosure, then your lender must sue you in court to obtain an order to foreclose and sell your home.

However, if your state allows Non-Judicial Foreclosure, then you will need to examine your original loan documents. Read or skim through and look for a "power of sale" clause. If this clause is anywhere in the documents, then you have pre-authorized the lender to sell your home at a sheriff sale without having to sue. All they will have to do is publish notice that you have defaulted on the loan and that they intend to sell the property at a public foreclosure auction.

Step 2. Now, go back to your state's laws and find out how, where, and when the lender must publish their notice of foreclosure or sheriff sale. They may have to publish your name and home address, along with the fact that you have not been paying your mortgage. The notice may appear in local newspapers, posted on the door of the courthouse, or in any other public place located in your county, including being posted on the house itself.

Step 3. If you know your lender can sell your home without having to sue you, then try and locate a notice of sale or notice of default that your lender may have sent to you. Hopefully you did not throw it away unopened or fail to pick it up at the post office if it was sent certified or registered mail. If the lender has sent you a copy of any notice, you can probably be assured it has been published elsewhere, as well.

Step 4. Once you know that you authorized the lender to sell the home, and they are publishing the sale date, you should call them immediately to start working on a solution that will stop foreclosure. Or, if you have been working on a solution, call them and let them know you are willing to do whatever you can to postpone the sheriff sale and get out of foreclosure right away.

Now that you know how your lender can pursue the foreclosure, you can develop immediate plans to save your home and make sure your neighbors, friends, and family do not know that you are in default and that your property will be auctioned off.

The tip "Don't go into foreclosure again" may seem obvious, but there is much more to the issue than just paying your mortgage on time every month.

Far too often, we come across people who have caught up on their mortgage payments only to have another emergency put them right back into foreclosure again. This may happen two or three times, each time the client borrowing money from friends of family, or taking out car title or payday loans. But without solving the real problem that caused them to fall behind, these clients run into another hardship and fail to pay their mortgage again. Then the cycle starts all over, only this time the homeowner's already ruined credit is destroyed even further. Also, their lender and the court system is much less willing to work with them after going back into default.

Obviously, your first goal if you are in foreclosure should be to stop the foreclosure process as soon as possible. But once you have been successful at stopping the foreclosure of your home, you should analyze why you fell behind in payments to begin with. Was it due to loss of job? Medical problems? Death and/or disability in the family? A difficult separation/divorce?

If the cause of the foreclosure was a loss of job and you are now caught up in payments and have a new job, then evaluating your monthly budget should be a top priority. Are you making enough money with your new job to be able to afford the mortgage payment, pay all of your other bills, and establish an "emergency fund?" If you can not establish this emergency fund, then what will you do if you lose your job again? Setting aside enough money to pay your expenses for at least a month should be your number one priority (3-6 months is even better, and should be set aside as soon as possible). Also, can you find a better job that offers higher pay and is more stable?

If medical problems were the reason you fell behind in payments and went into foreclosure, then evaluating your situation after stopping foreclosure is absolutely critical. A major medical crisis can change your life drastically and raise many important questions. Are you able to work your regular job, and will you be able to work it for long years? Can the medical issue recur, and if so, what will you do then? If you are unable to work your former job, then can you receive help from the government to provide training for a new job? Again, setting up an emergency fund should be of major importance to you at this time. A sudden relapse or secondary illness can put you right back into foreclosure, and, as you may have noticed the first time you were behind in payments, lenders have little sympathy for your condition if you can not pay your mortgage on time.

A death or major medical problem in your family can have much the same effect as experiencing the crisis yourself. Losing an income in your household or having to take significant amounts of time off work to care for a loved one can leave you scrambling around for money to make your mortgage payment, if you can make it at all. Once you have stopped the foreclosure, the same rules and questions apply in this situation as in the last two. Evaluate your income situation and make sure you can pay your mortgage bill, other household expenses, and save for a rainy day.

If a divorce or separation was the cause of your foreclosure, then you also have many questions to ask yourself and others after you have cured the default on your mortgage. Do you need the house now that there are fewer people living there? Is selling an option, or do you want to keep it? Are you due any extra money every month in the form of alimony, separate maintenance, or child support? You may want to consult with a family law attorney if you do not know the answers to some of these questions. However, once you have analyzed your income situation, make the effort to pay all of your bills and create an emergency fund in case something unexpected happens (and we all know it will).

In addition to the all-important emergency fund, there are a number of other changes you may want to consider. While no single change is guaranteed to prevent foreclosure, by making some necessary changes, you can protect yourself for a much longer period of time if another emergency occurs.

Are there any bills you can do away with completely? Paying a credit card, selling your new car and purchasing a used car, and canceling unnecessary services are all good ideas to implement until you have established your emergency fund.

Of the bills that are necessary, can you reduce any of them? While refinancing a car or mortgage may not be an option at this point, the potential for lowering other household bills is almost endless. Again, evaluate your budget, figure out where your money is going, and see where you can make changes that allow you to keep more of your money for yourself.

Evaluating the reasons that caused you to become a victim of foreclosure is one of the best ways to make sure you never end up in that situation again. While nothing can protect you from an endless string of bad luck and/or uninformed decisions, analyzing your current situation after foreclosure and building a cushion around yourself can allow you to keep your head above water for much longer next time there is an emergency.

One of the questions I've come across most often is "If my home is being foreclosed and the bank takes my home, can they take my car and other belongings, too?"

The short answer is that No, the lender can not take any personal belongings if they take back the home. Because the mortgage loan is secured by the property, the lender only has the right to take the property. And they can only take the house if the correct procedures are followed to foreclose. There are specific state foreclosure laws that must be conformed to in every foreclosure

However, in many cases, the lender can sue you for the difference between the amount the property sells for at the sheriff sale and the amount that you owed on the mortgage. Because properties rarely sell at auction for more than what was owed, this can result in the lender losing tens of thousands of dollars. In order to recover these vast sums of money, the lender can sue you and obtain a judgment against your personal items and belongings. This is called a "deficiency judgment," and is legal in many states, although not all of them allow this practice.

If this is the case, though, with enough work on the part of the lender, they can repossess your personal belongings. In any event, having a foreclosure and a deficiency judgment on your credit report will affect your ability to borrow money far into the future. No creditor wants to give money to someone who has defaulted on loan amounts of potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars. A deficiency judgment coupled with a foreclosure can seriously cripple your ability to get a car loan, personal loan, or new home loan.

Therefore, your very first goal should be learning what options you still have to stop the foreclosure and protect not only your house, but all of your belongings and your earnings. Either stop the foreclosure yourself, or obtain assistance in saving you home.

However, be very careful which foreclosure help companies you deal with or trust. Because of the nature of the foreclosure situation and the potential for desperate homeowners, a vast number of criminals and other "sharks" operate in the foreclosure industry. Unfortunately, the help these companies or individuals provide can leave you in a much worse situation than you are in now. Consulting our foreclosure scam page will give you some basic tips for preventing being taken advantage of.

That's why we recommend you do whatever you can to stop the foreclosure yourself by whatever way possible. If you can not or are unwilling to attempt to save your home on your own, then search for either government programs or other free foreclosure help programs.

So, your lender can not directly take your personal belongings in a foreclosure, but they can sue you outside of the foreclosure for an extra judgment to be placed against you. Hopefully you will be able to avoid the foreclosure and keep, not only your car and other items, but, most importantly, your home.

Every single day I read stories about foreclosure "investors" who are tricking unfortunate families out of their home and their equity. I would classify these people as "criminals", not investors.

These bastards look for the most unfortunate people they can find and proceed to steal their home and/or their savings. They pretend to offer you help, but in reality, they plan on tricking you into giving them money, or signing over your house to them. Even worse, some of these criminals have even opened up a school for teaching others how to take advantage of people in your situation!

Here are three easy steps to help you avoid getting scammed:

1. Don't talk people who show up at your door. (This seems obvious, but many people are so desperate that they will listen to anyone who claims to offer help)

2. Never sign anything you don't completely understand. Read every single line of a contract or agreement. Never rely on verbal agreements; everything discussed should be in writing.

3. And always remember, if something sounds too good to be true, then it probably is.

If you need help, or if you have been scammed by someone in the past, visit http://foreclosurefish.com and request help today.

The ForeclosureFish Tip Of The Day is don't put all your eggs in all basket. There are several options you may qualify for to save your home from foreclosure. Here are just a few of the ways you may save your home:

1. Refinance with a new lender.
2. Work out a repayment plan with your lender.
3. Sell your home to a friend or family member.
4. Find private financing through an investor or hard money lender.
5. Borrow money against other assets and negotiate reinstatement.
6. Sell other assets to catch up on mortgage.
7. Apply for special government programs to receive assistance.
8. Consult with an attorney about whether bankruptcy is a viable option.
9. Consider renting the house as an income-producing property.
10. Sell your home to a private investor with a lease-back option.

To receive more information or complete details on any of these options, please search our website or visit our downloads section to receive our free foreclosure e-book.

Thank you for your patience and support while we were updating our website. As you can see, all the previous posts were lost in the change-over. Please repost any useful information. We will try to get a searchable database of all the previous posts asap

Thank you,

ForeclosureFish Admin Team