The length of time between an initial foreclosure notice and the sheriff sale of the property depends on a number of factors, including the homeowners' state, the severity of the foreclosure crisis in the area, and how the borrowers respond to the bank's lawsuit. Some owners may have just a few months to find a solution, while others have more than six months between the time of the initial foreclosure notice and the auction of the house. And the entire foreclosure process will also depend on how long it takes for the case to wind its way through the local court system.

Foreclosure time lines are determined by state law and local county rules, so there is not one way for the process to go throughout the country. Notice regulations must also be followed by the lender and its attorneys, and these are determined by state law. If they do not serve homeowners with paperwork or fail to put notice in local newspapers for the required time before the sheriff sale, the foreclosure is not valid and the borrowers may be able to have a sheriff sale rescinded after the fact.

Also, long before the property auction, the foreclosure lawsuit must go through the local court system. The bank has to prove that homeowners are behind in payments and that it has the right to force the sale of the home to satisfy the defaulted mortgage. Unfortunately, because of the foreclosure crisis and the nature of the mortgage industry over the past couple of decades, there can be a lot of problems with this part of the process. Homeowners can take advantage of these weaknesses in the system either to stop foreclosure or to gain extra time to put their lives in order before moving out of a house.

First, the bank may not even own the mortgage note if it had been securitized and sold off to hedge fund and pension fund investors around the world, as is the case with nearly half of the mortgage made over the past decade. Homeowners should make the bank produce the original note in court to prove it has the right to take the house in the first place. If the loan was originated by a broker, subprime lending outlet, or a mortgage company that is now out of business, the bank that collects the payments now may not even have access to the note.

Second, the courts in some areas of the nation are so far behind in foreclosure cases that it might take months for them to hear a particular case. If the borrowers file an answer to the initial complaint, hearings will have to be set and this will take even longer. Sometimes an extra month or two can go by between the time a motion is filed with the clerk of court and when it is scheduled for a hearing before the judge in the case. And then homeowners can appeal any decisions the court makes that they feel were made in error, which drag out the process for even longer.

Until the bank proves it owns the loan and that borrowers have fallen behind on the payments, it can not go ahead with a sheriff sale. Borrowers are not "taking advantage of the system" any more than the lenders themselves are when they defend a foreclosure aggressively and demand the bank prove it has the right to take their home and sell it to satisfy a debt that the borrowers may not even owe to that particular bank. While some may say that homeowners who took out loans they could not pay and are now staying in homes mortgage-free for years are part of the problem, they are no more a part of the problem than banks requesting hundreds of billions of dollars in bailouts and not providing assistance to borrowers.

Thus, how long a period of time homeowners have between the foreclosure and the sheriff sale of the property depends on state law, how far behind the courts are in pursuing these cases, and how much they fight the bank's lawsuit. It is nearly always in the best interests of the owners to take as much time as possible to stay in the house without a mortgage payment, pay off other debts, and save up money for the future. Especially as the banks have plundered the people for trillions of dollars, any extra time that homeowners can save money and not pay their mortgage will be useful in the ongoing economic recession.