Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California

Re: FORECLOSURES - When does the owner have to vacate the property?

If you are in California, after an NOD is filed you have 90 days minimum time to redeem the deficiency before a Notice of Trustee Sale (NOTS) can be filed and recorded.

Once a NOTS is filed, a trustee sale of the property can take place after a minimum of 30 days. If no one purchases the property at the trustee sale, it goes back to the lender who foreclosed on the property and the loan is extinguished. It then becomes an REO (real estate owned) property, which is a property owned by the lender.

Typically lenders hire a realtor to market the REO property, which can take several months. Unless the lender gives you an eviction notice (in the case of no one buying the property), you can usually stay there until evicted. If someone purchases the property at the trustee sale, they become the new owner and can start eviction proceedings right away if they choose.

One way to delay the trustee sale is to write to the lender about a month before the trustee sale takes place, and demand that they produce the note under which they are foreclosing. Very often this can result in a delay of several months, as often the lender has sold the loan (which might have happend more than once)and they can't find the note. Good luck to you.