California Homeowner Bill of Rights
Protection for California Homeowners
The California Homeowner Bill of Rights became law on January 1, 2013 and have has been continuously updated to provide protection for California Homeowners facing foreclosure.
- Notification of foreclosure-prevention options: Your servicer must try to contact you before starting the foreclosure process to discuss your financial situation. Homeowners have the right to apply for a loan modification.
- Single point of contact: If you ask for a loan modification or other foreclosure-prevention option, your servicer must assign you a specific person or team that knows the facts and status of your application, including missing documents needed to complete your application, and can get you a decision on your application.
- Acknowledgment of application: If you apply for a loan modification, your servicer must notify you within five business days of any missing information, errors, and deadlines for completing your application.
- Dual tracking: Your servicer must pause the foreclosure process while it is making a decision on your completed loan-modification application and until after it gives you time to appeal a denial. It also cannot foreclose on you while you are complying with the terms of an approved loan modification, forbearance, repayment plan, or other foreclosure-prevention option.
- Denial rights: If your servicer denies your loan-modification application, it must state its reasons and identify other possible foreclosure-prevention options in writing. It must also give you a chance to appeal the denial.
- Transfer rights: If your servicer approves a loan modification or other foreclosure-prevention alternative and then sells or transfers your loan to another servicer, the new servicer must honor that foreclosure-prevention alternative.
- Tenant rights: If your home goes to Auction the purchasers of foreclosed homes must give you tenant rights of at least 90 days before starting the eviction proceedings. If there was a tenant in the home at the time of the auction and the tenant has a fixed-term lease that was entered into before the foreclosure sale, the new owner must honor the lease unless certain exceptions apply.
The Homeowner Bill of Rights generally applies to first-lien mortgages on owner-occupied homes that have no more than four units, and the protections above generally apply if your servicer foreclosed on more than 175 homes in the last year.