Posted by John Merchant,JD on July 03, 2002 at 15:13:41:
Verve, what you say may well be the law as to a particular state’s statutes, but only way to know is to read them, very carefully.
But be aware, there is no such thing as ONE set of foreclosure laws or rules for every kind of mortgage or deed of trust or contract’s foreclosure or forfeiture, in every state. So look up that particular state’s foreclosure laws on one of the many law websites, and confirm what they are for your particular deal.
And even within a particular state, there may well be differences in the procedure, depending on what type of mortgage (or Deed of Trust or “land contract”) is involved in the particular case.
Here, in my state, WA State, for instance, there’s a completely different procdure for forfeiting a contract of sale, and a WA Deed of Trust…and if a secondary lien holder such as your 2d holder in this case, wanted to redeem, he might or might NOT have that right.
So the reader must read the particular state’s laws and KNOW them…before getting any money into the deal!
By the way this is not difficult legal research and even without a computer, if the reader will just stop in at his closest courthouse, and have a look at Martindale Hubbell’s Law Directory (in the courthouse law library, which is open to the public), in Volume of Law Digests, one can find any one of the 50 states and check under Foreclosures, or Forfeitures, or Deed of Trust or Mortgage, and pretty quickly have the law needed.