Difficult economic times often create financial hardship for honest, hardworking families, and the current recession in the United States is no exception.  Mortgage delinquencies have yet to fully peak and experts suggest that expiring balloon notes in home loans and adjustable rate mortgages that have not yet reset will trigger yet another round of foreclosure activity.

Despite promises to Congress by mortgage lenders, programs that provide for voluntary mortgage modifications have not gained traction.  Instead, struggling families find themselves turning to Chapter 13 bankruptcy – the one certain solution to a pending mortgage foreclosure.

Chapter 13 works to stop foreclosure by force of law – when a case is filed an “automatic stay” is created that legally prohibits a foreclosure from taking place.  The bankruptcy stay works regardless of whether the foreclosure is taking place in a judicial foreclosure state like Florida, or a non-judicial foreclosure state like Georgia.  The Chapter 13 process is uniform in every state, but the foreclosure process is not – thus pressured homeowners should be careful when they research foreclosure and bankruptcy on the Internet or in the library – like everything in real estate, location does matter.

Every state has its own unique rules about foreclosure.  In “judicial” foreclosure states, the foreclosure process can take six to nine months or longer because the lender must actually file a foreclosure lawsuit – this according to Orlando foreclosure help attorneys Clark & Washington.  By contrast, in a “non-judicial” foreclosure state, the a home can be foreclosed and a family evicted within 45 days as the lender need only publish notice of the foreclosure in a designated newspaper.  “Our practice and procedure is entirely different in our Atlanta office,” notes Emory Clark, whose bankruptcy law firm maintains offices in Atlanta as well as central Florida.  “Clients seeking Atlanta Foreclosure help often face deadlines of just a few weeks.”

Because Chapter 13 bankruptcy laws are federal, they apply to pending foreclosures in both judicial and non-judicial foreclosure jurisdictions.  However homeowners receiving foreclosure notices should not assume that they have months to think about options because a web site says that is the case.  Most personal bankruptcy lawyers will speak to potential clients at no charge and this is one phone call that anyone in receipt of a foreclosure notice should make.