Five Most Common Mistakes Alabama Consumers Make When Sued For Ejectment After Foreclosure
After an Alabama consumer has gone through a foreclosure, a demand will be made to leave the home within ten days. If you don’t leave your home, then the mortgage company will sue you in what is known as an “ejectment action” to eject or evict you from your home.
Most Alabama consumers do nothing – and so the judge will rule against you and you will lose your home.
We have a book entitled “THE FIVE MISTAKES CONSUMERS MAKE WHEN FACING AN EJECTMENT LAWSUIT” that focuses in on the mistakes we see in Alabama. If you would like this book, at no charge, call us at 205-879-2447 or contact us through this website.
Here is an overview of the five mistakes:
Mistake #1: Not answering the lawsuit.
This is the most critical mistake. If we don’t answer the lawsuit, we will lose. There is no other way to say it. Whether the company suing for ejectment is right or wrong, it doesn’t matter. If we don’t answer, we lose. You can read about this mistake of not answering the lawsuit here.
The second mistake explains why people often don’t answer.
Mistake #2: Assuming that nothing can be done after the foreclosure sale.
We’ll talk for a moment about judicial versus non-judicial foreclosures. Here in Alabama, we have non-judicial foreclosures. Once the house is sold, many people wrongly assume there is nothing that can be done. That’s why they don’t answer the complaint.
Mistake #3: Assuming that the mortgage company (or whoever it was that foreclosed on the house) had the right to foreclose.
Some people call this “standing,” and what is meant by this is that the company doing the foreclosing has to have the legal right to do this. If they don’t, then they lack the standing to foreclose and any foreclosure by this company will be a wrongful foreclosure.
Mistake #4: Assuming that the foreclosure process was lawful and valid.
People think, “It happened, and they must have done it right.” That’s not always an accurate assumption.
Mistake #5: Failing to file a counterclaim.
This is when folks have potential claims they can bring against a mortgage company that is suing to eject or evict them from their home, but they fail to file counterclaims. In other words, when people have been sued, they have the right to countersue or file a counterclaim, but they don’t do that. We’ll talk about some of the consequences of that.
In future articles we will dive into these issues in more detail but we wanted you to have an overview of the mistakes so you can avoid them.
Let us know if you have any questions – call us at 205-879-2447.