The house is in foreclosure for non payment of the mortgage, not the taxes as the taxes are paid in full. (I was just pointing out that the house my sister is staying in (NOT the one in foreclosure) is not current on the property taxes. My sister did call the auditor's office and they told her they usually do not foreclose (and yes they used the word foreclosure and not sheriff's sale) until the property owner is delinquent for 2 years. They said the owner has about three months left before that time frame. From what I read online, if I understood it correctly, they have until the bank sells the house and the foreclosure is final. According to her lease, if they leave early and break the lease they still owe the remainder of the rent they were to pay unless the landlord finds a new tenant. So either they stay there and pay rent until they are told to leave (if it comes to that) or they move out and still owe the same amount of rent for the remaining months. And if they move out they don't get their deposit back. THey could choose to not pay but the landlord would take them to court (and probably win since they have a lease they signed) and she has taken others to court for non payment of rent and won. Again, their rental home isnt' the one currently in foreclosure, it is the home next door that is also owned by their landlord. But if the owner isn't paying the mortgage on THAT home and isn't paying property taxes on my sister's rental or even the landlord's OWN personal home what are the chances she is paying the mortgage on the rental my sister lives in?

OH my gosh, you are right. They could have repaired the pipes in the basement then air pressure tested the house. They really screwed up. Neighbor who's 76 was horrified and just as I thought - and had told the plumbers - she knew more about plumbing then them. We narrowed it down to pipes inside the shower wall most likely, I pulled up the tile in the upstairs room, and imagine this - she's going to come with her crowbar and help me pull out the boards behind the shower tomorrow. No those plumbers won't be coming back, they tried to call several times this weekend. Next is are they going to bill me and do I have to pay for this garbage? I told the owner of the company when I get a bill I'll sue so they don't need to bother billing me and they'll never step into this house again - they wanted to come "have the chance to fix it." I just can't believe this... at least today I wasn't in tears. But we didn't consider pressure testing. They should have, instead they blasted an old house that was vacant through a winter with water knowing there were issues. Stupid, stupid people who could care less.

"The question was "how long does it take to get an answer on a foreclosure" " The answer in this case would be an accepted and signed contract, not some verbal drivel that the offer is "accepted." I have seen banks renege on plenty of things that 'looked good' or had not been signed off on yet but verbally 'accepted.' I have had lenders fail to show at settlement with funds, fail to transfer funds despite everything being 'approved,' and otherwise make a mess of things (let alone getting dates wrong). They are in business to make as much money as they can, especially when they are already taking a hit. If they offered a verbal acceptance and a better offer was then made the shareholders would have every right to scream long and loud. You may think the bankers are as honest as the day is long, but many are not, and they are all out for one thing, to make as much money as they can.

I can't really answer your questions but this is what I know about foreclosure homes. They(the banks) often take INSANE amounts of time to "accept" offers, 4 or more months is pretty typical. To any logical person that seems crazy because they are just losing money and you would think that the sooner they can sell it to someone else the better, right? My realestate agent told us the shortest she has seen a FC sale go to accepted offer was 4 months but most of the ones she has done have taken more like 8m to a year. The last house we purchased in New York State, in 1997 was a fc, it took us about 8 months to get in AFTER the offer. We liked the house but this time when we started looking after relocating back to the Country we decided to avoid them, life is just too short.