Foreclosure Attorney Hub Attorney? Claim your profile

Foreclosure resources for homeowners.

A foreclosure is a deadline problem before it is a legal problem. Almost everything that helps — reinstating, modifying, selling, filing an answer, electing mediation — is available early and gone late. This page is about finding out which clock is running against you and who to call while it still matters.

Do these four things first.

In this order. Each one is free, and each one produces information you will need for the next.

01

Find the return date on the summons

Connecticut foreclosure is judicial: the lender files in the Superior Court and serves you with a summons and complaint. The summons carries a return date. An appearance is due by the second day after the return date (Practice Book § 3-2). Owner-occupants of one-to-four-family homes can ask for the Foreclosure Mediation Program by filing the appearance and the mediation certificate within 15 days of the return date. The Judicial Branch explains both on its homeowner questions page.

02

Write down every date you have been given

The date on a notice of default, an answer deadline on a summons, an advertised sale date. One of them is the real deadline and the others are noise, but you cannot tell which without all of them in front of you.

03

Call a HUD-approved housing counselor

Free, federally approved, and they deal with servicers every day. Use the CFPB or HUD finder below. Do this even if you also intend to hire a lawyer, because the counselor works the loan while the lawyer works the case.

04

Get the courthouse right

In Connecticut the town where the property sits decides which Superior Court judicial district hears the case (C.G.S. § 51-345). Our town pages name the courthouse; the venue guide covers towns with two permitted courthouses.

Free and low-cost help.

Federal agencies and the national legal aid network. None of these charges a homeowner a fee, and none of them is us.

What a lawyer does that a counselor cannot.

Both are useful. They are not substitutes for one another.

Connecticut procedure and courts.

Connecticut foreclosure is judicial and is filed where the property is. Start from the Connecticut page, then use the town page for the courthouse.

Connecticut

Frequently asked.

How long do I have before anything can be filed?

Under federal servicing rules a servicer generally may not make the first notice or filing until a borrower is more than 120 days delinquent (Regulation X, 12 C.F.R. § 1024.41(f)(1)). That is a floor, not a promise, and exceptions apply — but it means a servicer generally may not start a foreclosure until you are more than 120 days behind (12 C.F.R. § 1024.41(f)); use that time.

Is a housing counselor the same as a lawyer?

No, and the difference matters. A HUD-approved counselor is free and works on the loan — loss mitigation, modification, budgets. A lawyer works on the case: answering a complaint, raising defenses, appearing at a hearing. Many homeowners need both, in that order.

I cannot pay a lawyer. What then?

Start with legal aid rather than assuming you have no options. The Legal Services Corporation maintains a finder for the legal aid organization covering your county, and foreclosure is squarely within what they handle. We do not badge firms as pro bono on this site, because the volume of inquiries that generates helps nobody.

Someone offered to stop my foreclosure for a fee. Is that legitimate?

Treat it as a scam until proven otherwise. The FTC’s Mortgage Assistance Relief Services rule generally bars charging an advance fee for this work. Nobody legitimate needs money before they have done anything, and nobody legitimate asks you to sign the deed over or to stop talking to your servicer.

Does it matter which town my property is in?

Yes. In Connecticut the town where the property sits decides which Superior Court judicial district hears the case (C.G.S. § 51-345). Our town pages name the courthouse, and the venue guide covers towns with two permitted courthouses.