Post Foreclosure Assistance for Los Angeles and Orange County Homeowners

A trustee’s sale ends your ownership. It does not end your rights, your deadlines, or the decisions that will shape the next year of your life. In the 90 days after a sale, a former owner in Los Angeles County or Orange County is usually dealing with four things at once: a surplus claim, an eviction case, an offer of cash for keys, and letters from lenders and the IRS. Fred Yadegar handles all four together, so a good decision on one does not cost you on another.

The first 30 days: title is gone, possession is not

The moment the auctioneer accepts the highest bid, the sale is final, and the buyer becomes the owner of record when the Trustee’s Deed Upon Sale is recorded. You are no longer the owner. You are still the occupant, and California does not let anyone remove an occupant without a court order. Changing the locks, shutting off utilities, or hauling your things to the curb is not allowed.

Use these first weeks. File a change of address with the post office, because the trustee’s surplus notice under Civil Code §2924j is mailed to the property address and you may not be living there. Pull the Trustee’s Deed Upon Sale from the county recorder and compare the debt to the price paid; if the price is higher, you have a surplus claim, which our overage and surplus funds recovery page explains. Photograph every room before you move anything.

The eviction case and why the calendar matters

The buyer cannot sue you for possession until it serves a written three-day notice to quit under Code of Civil Procedure §1161a. If tenants live in the property, they are entitled to a 90-day notice, and a fixed-term lease generally must be honored to its end (Code Civ. Proc. §1161b). After the notice expires, the buyer files an unlawful detainer and has you served with a summons and complaint.

Since January 1, 2025, you have ten court days after service to file a written response (Code Civ. Proc. §1167). Court days exclude weekends and court holidays. Miss it and the buyer takes a default judgment without a hearing. If you respond, trial is usually set within about 20 days of a request, and after judgment the sheriff posts a five-day notice before lockout. Every step done correctly is time in the home. Our unlawful detainer and postponing possession pages go deeper, and if the sale itself was defective, wrongful foreclosure can be raised in the case.

Cash for keys

Most buyers at a trustee’s sale are investors who want the property empty and undamaged as quickly as possible. Many will pay for that. A cash-for-keys agreement trades your voluntary move-out on an agreed date for a payment, and sometimes for extra time.

Treat it as a negotiation, not a favor. The amount, the move-out date, who pays utilities until then, what happens to personal property, and whether the buyer dismisses any eviction case all belong in writing. Read the release language closely. An agreement drafted by the buyer’s lawyer may try to waive claims that have nothing to do with possession, including your surplus claim or a wrongful foreclosure claim. We review the paper before you sign it and negotiate the terms when the first offer is low.

Do you still owe the bank, the second lender, or the HOA?

California protects former owners here. After a non-judicial trustee’s sale, the foreclosing lender cannot get a deficiency judgment against you for any shortfall (Code Civ. Proc. §580d). If the loan was purchase money, meaning the money used to buy an owner-occupied home of one to four units, the anti-deficiency protection of §580b applies as well, and it generally carries over to a later refinance to the extent the new loan paid off the original one.

Two creditors are different. A junior lender that was wiped out by the sale and received nothing from the surplus can sometimes sue on its note, unless that loan was purchase money too. And an HOA’s lien is erased from the title, but the unpaid assessments remain your personal debt (Civ. Code §5650), which is why the HOA usually files a surplus claim ahead of you. Bring us every loan document and HOA statement and we will tell you what, if anything, survives the sale.

Credit and tax questions

A foreclosure appears on your credit report, and federal law generally limits how long adverse items stay there to seven years. Expect the lender to send an IRS Form 1099-A for the acquisition of the property, and possibly a Form 1099-C if it treats any part of the debt as canceled. Those forms exist, and they can affect your return. We are not tax advisers and we do not give tax advice. Take the forms and the sale figures to a tax professional before you file.

What to do right now

• File a USPS change of address today so the trustee’s notice and court mail reach you
• Do not sign a cash-for-keys agreement or any release until a lawyer has read it
• Calendar the date you were served with any eviction summons; ten court days is the deadline to respond
• Pull the Trustee’s Deed Upon Sale and check whether the price paid exceeds the debt
• Keep the Notice of Default, Notice of Sale, loan statements, HOA statements, and every letter in one folder
• Call us before you talk to the buyer, the buyer’s lawyer, or a recovery company

Why call Fred

Post-foreclosure problems are connected, and handling them separately is how people lose money. Fred Yadegar can defend the eviction, negotiate the move-out, file the surplus claim, and review the deficiency and lien questions as one matter, for clients across Los Angeles County and Orange County. You’ll be dealing with a licensed California attorney, not a recovery company. Tell us what’s going on and we’ll explain your options and costs before you commit to anything.