I need help right now
Find your situation below. The actions listed are ordered by what matters most when time is short.
Find your situation
Click on the one closest to yours. The full playbook has more depth — but the actions below are where to start today.
A foreclosure sale date has been set
- Call your servicer's loss-mitigation department — not general customer service, the specific loss-mitigation line — and find out what options are still on the table.
- Call 1-888-995-HOPE (HUD-approved counseling, free) to talk through your situation with someone who handles this every day.
- Find out your exact sale date from the servicer or trustee — not from a letter that arrived in the mail, and not from an investor.
- If you have equity, a controlled sale before the auction almost always protects more of it than waiting.
A tax sale or redemption deadline is approaching
- Get your exact payoff figure and redemption deadline from the county tax office directly — in writing.
- Call a HUD-approved housing counselor (1-888-995-HOPE) or a local attorney about your redemption rights.
- Do not pay a "finder" or an operator to tell you what your options are — the county tax office will give you the real numbers for free.
- If the sale has already occurred, ask a licensed attorney about surplus-funds rights immediately.
A parent or family member just died and there's a house
- Do not act on any offer or contact until the estate is legally organized. The probate filing is what put you on every investor's list — the flood of contact is the machine, not a deadline.
- Sign up for your county's free property-fraud/title alert service immediately for the property.
- Keep insurance active — tell the insurer the property may be vacant and get a vacancy endorsement.
- Contact a probate attorney to open the estate and determine who has authority to act.
I've already signed something and I'm not sure it was right
- Stop signing or paying anything further.
- Gather every document — the contract, any addenda, any receipts for payments made.
- Contact a licensed real estate attorney in your state immediately. Many states have cancellation rights for contracts signed in foreclosure situations or at home — these windows are short.
- If foreclosure is involved, also contact a HUD-approved counselor.
- Do not be embarrassed by this. Acting fast recovers far more than people expect.
My house is going to auction in the next few weeks
- Find out the exact sale date and your payoff figure from the trustee, servicer, or court — confirm these directly, not from an investor's letter.
- If there's equity, explore selling before the auction to protect it. A controlled sale almost always produces a better outcome than a forced auction.
- Call a HUD-approved counselor (1-888-995-HOPE) and a licensed attorney immediately.
One habit that applies to all of these
Never sign anything affecting your home the same day you first see it. A real offer survives a weekend. An offer that evaporates if you take two days was built to be signed before you could think clearly.
And before you sign anything: "Is this deadline set by a law or a court, or is it set by the person who benefits from my hurry?" Real deadlines come with documents. Manufactured ones come with phrases.
Want someone to walk through this with you?
A Home Transition Review gives you a clear picture of every option — including the ones no buyer will volunteer.