Foreclosure Survival Guide, The: Keep Your House or Walk Away With Money in Your Pocket

Facing foreclosure? Put together a plan. Take action.

When you’re in foreclosure, there’s no time to waste. You need to know your options and The Foreclosure Survival Guide’s can help. You’ll learn how to:

• determine whether you should try to keep your house
• find loan workout programs that could help you save your home
• apply for a loan workout with your lender
• bring your loan current in Chapter 13 bankruptcy, and
• if you can’t stay in your home, avoid unnecessary costs by filing for Chapter 7 bankruptcy.

The powerful, yet practical advice in this edition also explains:

• your most important tool―the 120-day foreclosure waiting period before foreclosure starts
• how the foreclosure process works
• potential tax consequences, and more.

Finally, if the law changes, you won’t be caught unaware. You’ll find significant developments posted on The Foreclosure Survival Guide’s online legal update page.

Amy Loftsgordon is a legal editor at Nolo, focusing on foreclosure, debt management, and personal finance. She is the coauthor of The Foreclosure Survival Guide, Solve Your Money Troubles, and Credit Repair. Amy has worked in the areas of foreclosure and debt collections for over 15 years, first in her own law practice and then for several law firms where she was responsible for ensuring compliance with foreclosure and collections laws. Amy has drafted foreclosure-related training programs and loan servicing compliance procedures, as well as written training manuals for collections operations. She also performed compliance reviews of foreclosures in multiple states as part of the national Independent Foreclosure Review. Amy was also instrumental in writing expert reports that were used in lawsuits against banks and servicers accused of mishandling preforeclosure, loss mitigation, foreclosure, and REO processes. In support of these lawsuits, she also conducted loan-level audits to assess servicer compliance with federal mortgage servicing laws, RESPA, TILA, SCRA, state foreclosure laws, and UDAAP/UDAP laws, as well as Making Home Affordable and FHA loss mitigation procedures. Amy received a B.A. from the University of Southern California and a law degree from the University of Denver Sturm College of Law. She is licensed to practice law in Colorado.

Cara O'Neill is a legal editor and writer at Nolo, focusing on bankruptcy and small claims. She has authored a variety of Nolo book titles, including The New Bankruptcy, Chapter 13 Bankruptcy, and Everybody’s Guide to Small Claims Court.
Before joining Nolo, Cara practiced for over 20 years in civil litigation and bankruptcy. During that time, she served as an Administrative Law Judge mediating disputes in the automotive industry, taught undergraduate and graduate law courses, and served as house counsel for a large insurance company. She earned her law degree in 1994 from the University of the Pacific, McGeorge School of Law, where she served as a law review editor and graduated a member of the Order of the Barristers―an honor society recognizing excellence in courtroom advocacy. Cara maintains a bankruptcy practice in Roseville, California at the Law Office of Cara O’Neill.