What Is a Judicial Foreclosure?

Video Transcript

"You have fallen on hard times recently and you have fallen behind on the payment of your mortgage and you have been warned or cautioned by your mortgage lender that they are instituting mortgage foreclosure proceedings against you and while talking with some of your neighbors, you've heard the term a judicial mortgage foreclosure. Hello, I'm Robert Todd and I'm here to answer the question what is a judicial foreclosure? Well basically many, many years ago before the enactment of many, many foreclosure laws, if you had a mortgage on your home and you didn't pay, pursuant to the terms of the mortgage, the lender simply took possession and ownership of your mortgage. Now a judicial proceeding is required and so when you talk about a judicial mortgage foreclosure, you're talking about the lender proceeding in accordance with the mortgage and in accordance with your particular state's laws regarding mortgage. They basically file a complaint for foreclosure which enables them to obtain ownership of your house so that they can sell it to see if they can realize sufficient proceeds to satisfy the mortgage. If they don't and there's a deficiency, then they also can proceed with a deficiency judgment against you. I'm Robert Todd and thank you for watching."