Foreclosure happens when a person fails to make payments whatever the reason may be on their mortgage. Foreclosure is what the lender, usually a bank or credit union, does to try to recoup some of their losses since payments haven’t been made. The lender essentially takes back the home from the borrower.

Foreclosures can seem complicated since there are so many different terms associated with them. Real estate agents and loan officers might know these terms like the back of their hands, but to the rest of us, it would be easy to get confused when terms start to be used.

Lien holder is another term important to understand as it relates to foreclosure. The lender, usually a bank or credit union, gives you money to finance your purchase of the home. This means there is a lien on the home. In truth, the lien holder has the power to take back the home, or foreclose on it, if you don’t keep your contractual obligations.

If a borrower starts to fail to make payments on their mortgage, the lender might choose to accelerate the loan. This can be done because most of the mortgages these days have acceleration clauses in them. This is another term that is helpful to understand. Without an acceleration clause, a lien holder would have to wait until payments were due and then declare the payments were defaulted.

With the acceleration clause, a lien holder can demand that the entire mortgage be due within a certain time frame thus accelerating the due date of the entire loan. This is what allows the lender to declare the entire loan is in default. With this clause, the lender has the right to say you owe us the full amount you borrowed and if you can’t pay it, we are foreclosing on the home.

Default is a term used in the previous paragraph. It is a term that is pretty self explanatory, but it is still important to know what it means. When someone fails to make payment on their mortgage as the terms and guidelines state on the mortgage, the loan is considered to be defaulted on. If you default on a loan, you have not kept your contractual obligations and the lender can move forward with reclaiming the property as the terms of the mortgage stipulate.

When it comes to foreclosure, there are a lot of details to try to take in. Understanding these few basic terms will help you make foreclosures just a little less foreign.

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