A foreclosure is a civil suit brought under Florida Statutes to retake real estate that secures a mortgage. Generally, a lender will invoke its "acceleration" rights under the mortgage, telling you your entire principal balance is due. Once that declaration is made, suit can follow at any time. The homeowner has 20 days to answer the complaint, otherwise default is entered. From there most attorneys move the case into summary judgment, which basically means the lender is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law. This requires a hearing, which could take weeks or months to get from the judge. At that hearing, if the attorney for the lender has done his job, the judge will order the house to go up for public sale. This happens no sooner than 30 days following final judgment. Judges in this circuit have been known to allow 60 or 90 days if the homeowner asks for extra time. When the property is sold, it is to the highest bidder for cash, but in almost every case that will be the lender, who has a "judgment bid" up to the amount the lender was owed, including attorneys' fees, costs, and interest. Ten days after the sale, if no one has objected to the sale, a certificate of title is recorded in the public records of the county, and the foreclosure sale is complete.

So, in short, a foreclosure will never take less than 3 months, even if everything is done to speed it up. In most cases, it takes 6 months to a year from notice of acceleration to final sale.

If you are being foreclosed on it could be as short as a few months to over 6 months... If you are able to work a short sale before the full foreclosure is done, that would be better.... If you are interested in buying a foreclosure, you can probably get it closed in 30-45 days or so. Contact me for any specific questions...