Moving Out After A Foreclosure - Appliances, Fixtures, & Stripping the House

After a foreclosure happens, most homeowners will be able to live in their house payment free for a period of anywhere from 4 months up until 12 months on average (sometimes even longer). This is because the foreclosure process is not a simple open and shut case. Paperwork needs to be filed from the mortgage company with their attorneys, then from the attorney to the courts, and then from the courts to all parties involved.

This process can be lengthy depending on many different factors. Some lenders and counties are very quick with their processing of everything and others are simply very busy and take quite awhile. Therefore, you will be able to stay in your home up through the sheriff's sale of your home if you would like to. Many people opt to move out shortly before the sheriff sale. However, there are some people who stay in the home after the sheriff sale until they are evicted, which can buy them a few more months of living without a housing payment. Keep in mind that the home is still in your name up until the home is transferred via sheriff sale. You should still try to keep up with the lawn and keep your insurance on the home as well to cover the house in case of any damage.

A very common question from consumers who have been foreclosed upon is what am I permitted to take from the home when I move out? Can I take the stove, the refrigerator, the overhead or built-in microwave, light fixtures, ceiling fans, etc...? This is a very grey area of the law. While there are a few people that do take just about everything form their homes and get away with it with no repercussions, lenders have been starting to crack down on this type of activity and pursuing legal action. In most lender agreements there is a stipulation that states that any improvements made to the home are to stay with the home. Generally, anything that the home came with when you purchased the home is the minimum of what is required to be left in the home after you have moved out.

Therefore, if the home came with a stove, you should leave it with a stove, if the home came with a refrigerator, you should leave it with a refrigerator and so on. If you bought a new stove for the house, you don't have the old stove any longer and you want to take the new stove, I would advise against it since the home came with a stove and by taking the new stove and leaving nothing in its place you would be lowering the value of the home. Taking any fixtures, such as toilets, faucets, sinks, cabinets, etc... would also not be recommended because that would be considered lowering the homes value.

Therefore when in doubt leave it, you have enough to worry about without having to worry if the lender is going to try and sue you for stripping the house before you moved out. If you want to take light fixtures, appliances and other items, I would try to make sure that you simply replace them, even if you replace them with very cheap items in their place. Keep in mind, once an item is screwed in, nailed down, and/or attached, the item is considered part of the real property regardless of the cost or who paid for it and once the home is foreclosed upon, the item is supposed to remain with the property.

Therefore, while the chances are that your lender will not go after you for taking the appliances and some general fixtures from the home, is it really worth the risk? I have heard attorneys provide arguments for both sides of this situation in regards to stripping a home down after being foreclosed upon. The bottom line is that you are already getting out of a major obligation from a legally binding agreement you made with the mortgage company to repay your mortgage loan and just simply from a moral standpoint it is not right to strip the home down, let alone from a legal standpoint either. You are trying to get a new clean, fresh start here and you don't need the chances, even as slim as they are, of something like this lingering over you and coming back to haunt you for years to come.

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