Day 117: Notice of Default (for serious)

Credit Score: 654

Phone Calls: 15

Emails: 3

Paper: 14

On-Time: 133/135

Yaaaaay! For reals this time. Very definitely a Notice of Default was taped to our door last night. Over the weekend, we had received a letter that our loan was being transferred to a local law firm, then BAM! notice was posted. I like this firm already. If this pace keeps up, we could still be done this year, and still under the tax-free bill.

The significance of this notice is both that we've actually made some progress and that we're officially going down the non-judicial foreclosure route (the good one). They can still change their minds up until the sale actually happens, but it's still really rare for anyone to do a judicial (judge involved) foreclosure on such a tiny property.

Maybe this transfer is why it's been all quiet on the western front the last few weeks. And I imagine it'll continue to be quiet. The lender isn't trying to collect anymore (although the notice did say exactly how much I could pay them to un-default myself), and I'd guess that the lawyers aren't going to waste any time or money on extra papers to us.

I'm probably too optimistic, but I'd like to think that this law firm would want to get this over with as quickly as possible. All the government programs out there are designed to halt this process. If they get repeatedly halted in the middle of these foreclosures, the lawyers must get paid less.

Foolishly optimistic or not, I'm a little more hopeful of a tax break now. :) I'll be very interested to see whether we get a notice of sale at the 30-day minimum. If we do, we could be moved before Thanksgiving. There’s no maximum between the Notice of Default and the Notice of Sale though. Once we get a Notice of Sale, there’s both a minimum and a maximum, so everybody’s locked in. Until then, you could say this is artificial progress, but I’m still happy.

July looks to be an exciting month. Fireworks, perhaps the sun will finally come out, Olympics opening ceremonies, and potentially, a Notice of Sale.