Does Your Mortgage Company Have Your Correct Mailing Address?
By Kevin Gipson, New Orleans Consumer Attorney on Aug 9, 2008 in Foreclosure Defense, Foreclosure Process
Do you own investment property or vacation property that is mortgaged?
Do you know if your mortgage company has a correct address to contact you for notices involving your mortgage?
More importantly, does your mortgage company have a correct address to have you served with a lawsuit if it decides to foreclose on your property?
For investment property and vacation property, the answer is probably no, the mortgage company does not have your correct contact address!
How is this possible?
Nationally, foreclosures are on the increase and Louisiana, the state in which I practice law, is no different.
Louisiana is a Judicial Foreclosure state, which means that before a mortgage company can sell a piece of real estate that you own it must file a lawsuit and have you served with notice of the intent to foreclose on your property before they can sell it.
With the rise in foreclosures I am seeing more and more clients in my office who tell me that they have just learned that their investment property or vacation property is scheduled for a Sheriff’s Sale. The client further tells me that they had no written notice of a sale and they were never served with a judicial notice of sale.
Again, how is this possible?
When I look at the mortgage documents the problem is apparent: The mortgage documents list the investment/vacation property address as the mailing address for all correspondence or service of legal documents, not the address were the client lives. As a result, even though the client may be getting the bills for the mortgage at their home and even though they know they are behind on payments, they are not getting the “legal” notices since the mortgage company is using the address on the mortgage documents for notice.
How can this be avoided?
It is actually very easy: take time at the closing of the mortgage to make sure that your home address is listed as your notice address, and if not, then have the notice address on the mortgage documents changed to your home address.
If your home address is not the notice address on an existing mortgage that you already have for investment/vacation property, then send written notice of your home address, certified mail, return receipt requested to the mortgage company.
While this won’t stop a mortgage company from starting foreclosure proceedings, it will at least make it certain that you have notice in time to take action to save your property.
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