Home Owners' Rights During Foreclosure in Texas

• In some states your lender cannot foreclose without going to court, but Texas is not one of them. In Texas, most mortgage documents contain a "power of sale" clause, which authorizes the lender to sell the house without getting a judge's permission first, a process known as "non-judicial foreclosure." This enables lenders to wrap up the foreclosure and sell your house in about three months.

Advance Notice

• Before starting the foreclosure process, your lender must contact you and give you 20 days to make up the delinquent payments, plus interest and legal fees, according to the Foreclosure Law website. If you find a way to pay, or negotiate an alternative to foreclosure with the lender, you can stop the process. If not, once the 20-day deadline expires, the lender will send you a 21-day advance notice of the foreclosure sale.

Residence

• Your house remains your house until the lender actually sells it, the Nolo legal website states, so you can stay in it legally until then; you don't even have to pay the mortgage. Even after the sale, you don't have to leave until the new owner---which may be your lender, if nobody bid high enough on your house---evicts you.

Suing to Prevent Foreclosure

• If you don't want to give up your house, or believe that the lender has no right to foreclose, you can file a lawsuit to prevent foreclosure, even in a non-judicial procedure, Nolo states. You may be able to keep your house if, for example, you can prove that the lender made a mistake and you don't owe them money, or that the lender can't document that it owns the mortgage.

Automatic Stay

• If you file for bankruptcy in Texas, that triggers an automatic stay that prevents your creditors, including your mortgage lender, from continuing efforts to get money out of you until the court resolves your case. Bankruptcy won't stop foreclosure, the Nolo legal website states: In the end, you'll have to keep paying your mortgage and make up any late payments. However, the automatic stay can give you more time to collect money or work out an arrangement to pay your lender.