In many counties, sheriff sales seem to be scheduled, canceled, and rescheduled numerous times before a home is finally sold. There are a number of reasons why a foreclosure auction may be canceled. Not all of them will result in a new sheriff sale being scheduled, but the best bet to find out when the next sale will be held is simply to call the county courthouse or the sheriff's department and ask them. When a sale is postponed, it is often rescheduled immediately for the next month.

Homeowners facing foreclosure on a house may convince a bank to delay a sheriff sale quite easily. If they are working on selling, refinancing, or loss mitigation, and they have a reasonable offer for the lender, it may accept and decide to hold off on the sale. Getting a one month extension on an auction is very easy for most homeowners and almost automatically approved by mortgage companies. Borrowers can even do this multiple times if the solution they are working on takes longer than expected.

The bank (the plaintiff in the lawsuit) may also voluntarily cancel a sale if the homeowners have already cured the foreclosure completely. If the borrowers pay back what they owe the lender, agree to a mortgage modification, sell the house, or pay off the loan and judgment through refinancing with a foreclosure lender, the bank has no more claim and the auction must be canceled. In this case, there would be no future sale date, unless the owners fell back into foreclosure at some later date. But then the entire legal process would have to start from the beginning.

Filing bankruptcy will also stop a sheriff sale immediately as soon as it is filed and the bank and county court are made aware of it. The automatic stay that goes into effect when a new bankruptcy is filed prohibits the mortgage company from any further collection activities, including selling the house at a foreclosure auction. The lender has to cancel the sale or have it reversed afterward if the bankruptcy is not known about until after the auction, and it is easier to cancel it beforehand.

Homeowners can also defend a foreclosure lawsuit and ask the courts to delay the sheriff sale. There are motions that the borrowers can file that will temporarily restrain the plaintiff from selling the house until the motion can be heard and ruled upon by the judge. This can get the homeowners an extra month or two before the courts schedule the motion for a hearing, during which time the bank can not sell the home. But this is somewhat rare, and it is easier to delay judgment on the lawsuit itself by defenses in court, rather than have the auction delayed after the fact.

In any event, many times the delay of the sale will only be for a month or two at the most. Banks do not want to push an auction back for several months at a time, since the homeowners may simply give up and abandon the home. If sales are held on the third Thursday of the month, the new auction will most likely be the next third Thursday. Most counties hold sheriff sales on predetermined dates, so it may be quite easy to find out when the property is scheduled for sale again. But it is also a good idea to call the county to make sure.