Arizona Foreclosure Help Center

Most Arizona home loans are secured by a deed of trust, which lets the lender's trustee sell the house without a court case after default. The trustee's power of sale comes from A.R.S. § 33-807. Before any sale, the trustee records a notice of trustee's sale with the county recorder and mails it as required by A.R.S. § 33-809. That recorded notice is the document that starts the clock, and it states the sale date, time and place.

Federal servicing rules add their own early steps: the CFPB explains that servicers generally cannot start foreclosure until a loan is more than 120 days delinquent and must tell you about loss-mitigation options. The CFPB page in the sources describes that timeline in plain language.

• Open every letter from the servicer; the loss-mitigation offer is usually in there.
• The notice of trustee's sale is recorded and mailed; it is public and your neighbors and investors can see it too.
• A notice is not the sale. The statute requires time between the two.

The sale date in the notice must be no sooner than the ninety-first day after the notice was recorded, under A.R.S. § 33-808. The sale is a public auction and may be postponed by the trustee as A.R.S. § 33-810 allows, which is why a sale date can move. Reinstatement, meaning paying the past-due amounts, allowed costs and fees to bring the loan current, is available under A.R.S. § 33-813 up to the deadline that statute sets before the scheduled sale. After the auction, the buyer pays and receives a trustee's deed under A.R.S. § 33-811.

Our deadline navigator below turns a recorded date into the earliest statutory sale date and the reinstatement window, with the statute text linked at each step. It is an arithmetic aid, not a determination of your rights: the real dates are the ones printed on your recorded notice, and postponements, bankruptcy filings, loss-mitigation agreements and servicer errors all change what actually happens.

The deed of trust, any assignments, the notice of trustee's sale, and the trustee's deed after a sale are all recorded with the county recorder where the house sits. Maricopa County's recorder offers an online document search; Pinal, Pima, Yavapai, Yuma and Mohave counties' recorder pages are in the sources. Search by the borrower's name. If you cannot find a recorded notice, nothing has started yet under the statute, although the loan can still be in default.

• Maricopa County (Phoenix, Mesa, Chandler, Gilbert, Glendale, Scottsdale, Tempe, Peoria, Surprise, Goodyear, Avondale, Buckeye, Queen Creek, Cave Creek, Fountain Hills, Paradise Valley).
• Pinal County (Casa Grande, Maricopa, Apache Junction, San Tan Valley). Pima County (Tucson). Coconino (Flagstaff). Yavapai (Prescott). Yuma (Yuma). Mohave (Lake Havasu City).

Your mortgage servicer is the company you send payments to, and its loss-mitigation department is the only party that can approve a modification, forbearance or repayment plan. Call the number on your statement, ask for loss mitigation, and ask what a complete application requires. Keep a log of every call: date, name, what was said.

HUD-approved housing counseling is free and independent. HUD's counseling line is (800) 569-4287, and HUD's agency search lets you find Arizona agencies by location. Take Charge America and Trellis are Phoenix-area nonprofits that appear in HUD's listings; Chicanos Por La Causa and other agencies serve the state. A counselor can review your budget, help assemble the servicer's application, and tell you which options fit. Veterans with VA-guaranteed loans have a separate VA help line described on the VA page in the sources.

If the servicer violates Arizona law, the Department of Insurance and Financial Institutions takes complaints about licensed mortgage lenders and servicers; the CFPB takes complaints about federally regulated servicers.

There is no single right answer; the options below are the ones servicers, HUD counselors and the GSEs describe, and each depends on your loan, your income, and how far behind you are. Fannie Mae's and Freddie Mac's homeowner pages in the sources explain the programs available on loans they own.

• Reinstatement: pay everything past due plus allowed fees before the statutory deadline; the loan continues as before (A.R.S. § 33-813).
• Repayment plan: the servicer spreads the arrears over future payments on top of the regular payment.
• Forbearance: payments are paused or reduced for a set time, then caught up by a plan, a deferral, or a modification.
• Loan modification: the servicer changes the rate, term or balance so the payment is affordable; requires an application and documents.
• Refinance: usually only possible before the credit damage of a long delinquency.
• Short sale: the servicer agrees to accept less than the balance from a sale; needs servicer approval and takes months.
• Deed in lieu of foreclosure: you give the house back by agreement instead of auction; the servicer must accept it.
• Sale before the auction: list with an agent if there is time and equity, or sell directly to a cash buyer when there is not; either must close before the sale date.
• Bankruptcy: filing stops the sale while the automatic stay is in place; talk to a bankruptcy attorney, not a buyer, about this.

A sale stops a foreclosure only when it closes and the loan is paid off through escrow before the trustee's sale date. A contract alone changes nothing; the trustee will still sell on the date unless the servicer postpones. That is why the practical questions are how many days remain, whether there is equity after the payoff, and whether a buyer can close inside the window. Title companies order the payoff from the servicer and pay the loan, the arrears and the trustee's fees at closing.

If the house is worth more than the payoff plus costs, listing usually nets more but takes longer; a direct cash sale trades price for a closing that fits the date. If the house is worth less than the payoff, the choice is a short sale or one of the keep-the-house options above. Our comparison tool below walks through the trade-offs; our own offer method is explained on the How We Calculate Your Offer page.

Foreclosure does not wait for other problems to resolve. An inherited house in foreclosure needs someone with authority (a personal representative, trustee or beneficiary) to deal with the servicer, and the Garn-St Germain Act protects a relative who inherits from a due-on-sale demand but not from the missed payments. A divorce decree that assigns the house to one spouse does not remove the other from the loan. Tax liens, HOA liens and city abatement liens are paid from the sale proceeds or survive it depending on priority, and an unresolved code case can still be open on the day of the auction.

Each combination has its own page in our city guides, linked below, and the probate and code-violation centers cover the other half of each problem.

Anyone who asks for an up-front fee to "stop" a foreclosure, tells you to stop paying the servicer and pay them instead, or asks you to sign the deed over with a promise you can buy it back later should be treated as a scam. HUD's counseling is free; the CFPB and Arizona's Attorney General take complaints. A legitimate buyer, including us, buys the house outright at closing through a title company and never asks for a fee.