Bristol Township, PA Mortgage Foreclosure Defense Lawyer

Your mortgage is one of your most important pieces of debt, but it might not always seem that way in the moment.  Keeping up with mortgage payments ensures you can keep your house, but when debt starts piling up and you need to decide between gas to get to work, food to feed your family, and a mortgage payment, the mortgage is often the first payment to slip.

If you are in danger of foreclosure or foreclosure proceedings have already been started against you, you should seek help from attorneys who can work to help you manage your debt, fight foreclosure, and ultimately help you keep your home.

For a free case evaluation, contact our mortgage foreclosure defense attorneys at Young, Marr, Mallis & Associates at (215) 701-6519.

Fighting Foreclosure with Bankruptcy in Bristol Township, PA

Sometimes the best way to fight foreclosure is to file for bankruptcy.  Everyone’s situation is different, and bankruptcy will not always be appropriate, but our mortgage foreclosure defense attorneys can help explain how bankruptcy helps with foreclosure, assess your case to see if you are a good candidate for bankruptcy, and help you determine which type to file.

How Bankruptcy Stops Foreclosure

When you file for bankruptcy, your petition gets you what is called an “automatic stay” against any collections efforts.  This should stop all proceedings in court or from creditors to collect on the debts you owe.  This gives you breathing room to stop collections calls, cease foreclosures, and give you time to address your bankruptcy petition and start to catch up on your debts.

This is one of the primary protections for bankruptcy petitioners that helps them get their foreclosure stopped and protect their money in other ways, but bankruptcy might be too extreme for all foreclosure cases.

Is Bankruptcy Right for Me?

Not everyone who is facing foreclosure should be filing for bankruptcy.  If your only debt that you are having trouble paying is your mortgage and you are doing okay with your credit card debt, car payments, student loans, and other debts you might have, then bankruptcy might not be the best move.  There are other ways to delay or even stop foreclosures – or, if you act early enough, other ways to catch up on your mortgage payments – that can be pursued without filing for bankruptcy.

If it is just your home payments you are having trouble with, you might be living in a house that is simply too expensive, or you might have a bad loan that increases the monthly payment as time goes on, contains a sudden balloon payment, or simply has too high of an interest rate.  There may even be ways to swap out or refinance your loan, potentially saving you from getting to foreclosure in the first place.  You might also be better off simply selling your house and moving to a more affordable home.

Bankruptcy is likely one of the best options for you, however, if you have a lot of debt piling up.  If you are behind on more than just your home mortgage payments and you have debt collectors calling you about credit card bills, unpaid doctor’s bills, repossessed cars, and other outstanding debt, bankruptcy may be the next best step.

Types of Bankruptcy

People are probably most familiar with the name “Chapter 11” bankruptcy, but that is a business bankruptcy.  For personal bankruptcy, you will usually want to file Chapter 7 or Chapter 13.

Chapter 7 is often called “liquidation” bankruptcy because it sells off assets to pay back your debts.  Federal protections exist to help you keep your house, but Pennsylvania does not have these same protections.  In any case, selling your house might actually be a good way to pay off debts if you already have a lot of equity in your home that might be able to cover the other debts you have.  In any case, Chapter 7 is “means tested,” and it is only available to people under certain income thresholds.

Chapter 13 is more common when people have enough income to make payments, but their current payments are just too high.  This is called “reorganization” bankruptcy, and it takes all of your debts and turns them into one monthly payment.  This is often much slower than Chapter 7 and will see you pay more of your debt over time rather than clearing more of it away, which is why this is the main bankruptcy option for people with enough income to cover this kind of bankruptcy.

Fighting Foreclosure Without Bankruptcy in Bristol Township, PA

If bankruptcy is not right for you, there are still options to forestall foreclosure before it starts, as well as ways to fight foreclosure once the case has already been filed.

Acting Early

If you can catch up on your payments by eliminating other debts and payments, you might be able to make back payments and “catch up,” preventing the need for your creditor to consider foreclosure.  Foreclosure is also expensive for creditors, and they might be willing to renegotiate a payment plan or put your loan into temporary forbearance, giving you time to catch up without further risk of foreclosure.

You may also be able to refinance or simply sell your house and move to a more affordable option.  This might be your best option to get some financial stability if you already have substantial equity in your house and sale would cover a down payment on a new house and give you an injection of cash to help with other expenses.

Stopping Foreclosure

You might also be able to stop foreclosure again by selling the house, but if you want to stay, there are other courses of action to potentially pursue.  If there are problems or deficiencies with the creditor’s filings, we can fight them in court and give you additional time.  We can also help negotiate on your behalf and potentially come to a new arrangement on your outstanding debt.

Call Our Mortgage Foreclosure Defense Attorneys in Bristol Township, PA Today

If your house is in jeopardy, call (215) 701-6519 for a free case review with the mortgage foreclosure defense attorneys at Young, Marr, Mallis & Associates.