What happens when a bank forecloses on a house? My mom has her house listed for sale but owes more than the asking price. She is elderly and living on a fixed income and I was wondering what would happen if she just doesn't pay her mortgage? How long does the foreclosure take?

My Mom is going through the same thing. We moved her out into a rental. It took 3 months for them to actually start the foreclosure proceedings and her condo is to be auctioned off in October. God bless the elderly!

It will take them at least 2 months normally to start the procedure which involves notices, a home inspection and then about the 3 rd month they will start court proceedings, But once it is foreclosed on, she will be evicted out.

She can see about a short sale, get a offer on the house, even for less than the mortgage and see if the bank will accept this as payment in full, most mortgage companies have a "loss migration" department that handles these things.

My mom had her home on the market for 3 years with no bites. We also attempted a short sale, but that didn't work out. She didn't owe that much on the condo, like $40,000 but the neighborhood had gone down so bad that we just couldn't get rid of it. I think the short sale offer was like $25,000 and they turned it down. She had no other choice but to walk away from it. Or I should say, be drug away from from it by her adult children. We considered even taking it over and renting it out, but the condos have had a lot of problems with MOLD and again, the neighborhood had turned into the HOOD.

The problem is that a foreclosure doesn't not eliminate the debt. The mortgage holder forecloses, sells thje property at auction, takes on the costs of the foreclosure process and tells the former owner they still owe the balance.

I understand that they will still put a judgement on her for the remaining balance and the foreclosure cost, but a 77 year old women who has nothing... doesn't care or shouldn't. She felt she had a hardship case due to her health and living in a town with no family, but no one cared. So, we just got to the point that we needed to get her out of there and to a town with family and screw it. It's sad that it has come to this for my mom and so many other elderly people, but it's the hard facts.