Washington State Foreclosure Timeline Process [Video]

A video describing the Washington State Foreclosure Timeline and Process.

What happens once you stop making your payments, what is a Notice of Default, what is a Notice of Trustees Sale, what is an Auction Date? These items are all lined out in the foreclosure process.

Washington State Foreclosure Timeline Process Video:

Video Transcript:

Hey, what’s going on everyone. Anton Stetner here with the Real Estate Solutions Group. I wanted to bring you guys a video that I’ve been meaning to make for a long time because I consistently get asked this question, because we do a lot of bank owned properties, we help investors with foreclosures and short sales and things like that. So we always get asked: What is the Washington State foreclosure timeline or process. How does this process really work?

It’s unbelievably complicated, is the moral of the story, but what I wanted to do is I wanted to break it down with you for just a few simple steps so everyone would have a basic idea of how this process works and what’s happening during that foreclosure process.

The first thing that happens when you’re out here. This is hey, I’m happy. I’m current on my mortgage. All of a sudden you go non-current on your mortgage. Somewhere after the non-current on the mortgage, it’s generally at that 60 day mark, you’re going to receive what’s called a notice of default. Now that notice of default we also, you hear people refer to it as the NOD, so NOD stands for notice of default. It’s just a letter where the bank sends you, it says, “Hey, you are in default. We intend to accelerate your loan because you’ve defaulted on its terms.”

Moving over to part two, basically what happens after a notice of default is your notice of trustee sale. You’re notice of trustee sale is also
referred to as a NTS. The notice of trustee sale sets a specific auction date, and the notice of trustee sale can be issued 30 days after the notice
of default is issued. In the state of Washington, the notice of trustee sale is a recorded document, and generally speaking the notice of default
is not.

Then we have the period between the notice of trustee sale and the actual auction date. What can happen during that period? So this is, over here moving towards that, we’re going to come back to this in just a second, but your auction date, the initial auction date must be at least 90 days after your notice of trustee sale. It’s on a Friday at the courthouse steps, and it may be postponed for up to 120 days.

Now, what could kill something during that foreclosure process? If the bank decides to postpone it, so they can delay this auction date to another time, or if they decide to cancel the notice of trustee sale. Now the reason they would cancel it is you have caught back up on your mortgage, the short sale is being pre-approved, they’ve given you a loan mod, those would be reasons they would cancel it. They’re not going to cancel it if one bank sells the note to another one, generally speaking, talking in big generalities here.

Now what happens at the auction is there are two specific outcomes at the auction. So it’s Friday, 123 Main Street is being auctioned off at the
courthouse steps, and basically what happens is two outcomes happen, the property is either sold back to the bank, or it is sold to a third party.
How that happens is the bidding process happens. So generally speaking, if they don’t discount the bid, whatever mortgage is foreclosed is the amount of the opening bid, and the bank bids for themselves. So if the first mortgage foreclosed, it was $200,000, and it was Bank of America, Bank of America bids $200,000, and then the trustee goes in and allows someone else to buy it. So if someone else, an investor, bought it for $210,000, it would then sell to a third party. If no one else bid during the process, it would be sold right back to the bank for their bid or the opening bid amount. The bank can decide though to discount the bid. That’s a whole different other conversation.

During this process you already have to have the house ready to give in, for this you need to had finish all the moving process and just leave the things you are not taking with you and of course are part of the sell. If you don’t have anyone to help you with this you can work with Packaging Solutions for Australian Companies, so you can finish with this process easy and fast with all the necessary equipment, just in case the movers company does not provide them.

What happens is, once that bid is aborted, a trustee’s deed is issued, and the property is no longer in the possession of the seller or the previous owner. It is officially owned by either the bank or the investor that purchased it.

That’s Washington State foreclosure timeline. If you guys have any thoughts, questions, or comments, leave them below. We will update you more as we go, and thanks for taking time to watch this.