Facing Foreclosure in New York? Your Rights, Timeline, and Defense Options

New York is a judicial foreclosure state, which means a lender can’t simply take a home after a missed payment — it has to sue in court, and the homeowner has real, legally enforceable rights at several points along the way. Even moving at the statutory minimum pace, the required notice periods and settlement conference alone add up to well over a year. In practice, contested cases in New York City commonly run two to five years or longer before a home is actually sold at auction, largely because of court backlog in boroughs like Brooklyn and Queens and the time added by motion practice and the defenses described below. This guide walks through how the process works, the notices a lender is legally required to send before and after filing suit, the settlement conference every homeowner is entitled to, and the defenses that can slow down or defeat a foreclosure case entirely.

How the Foreclosure Process Works in New York

Unlike states that allow a lender to foreclose through a non-judicial or trustee sale, New York requires the lender to file an actual lawsuit under Real Property Actions and Proceedings Law (RPAPL) Article 13. That lawsuit works its way through the same court system as any other civil case — filing, service, discovery, and motion practice — plus, in residential cases, a mandatory settlement conference before it can move forward. The table below lays out the rough shape of that timeline; the sections after it go through the parts that matter most to a homeowner trying to keep the home.

Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx tend to run toward the longer end of that range — usually because of court backlog, not because anything is being handled differently in those cases.

The 90-Day Notice Every Lender Has to Send First (RPAPL § 1304)

Before a lender can file a foreclosure lawsuit on a home loan, New York law requires it to send a specific pre-foreclosure notice at least 90 days in advance. That notice has to spell out the borrower’s current default status, list government-approved housing counseling agencies, and include contact information for the New York Attorney General’s Homeowner Protection Program — and it applies to any lender, loan servicer, or assignee, not just whoever originated the loan. The requirement covers home loans on one- to four-family homes and condos used as the owner’s primary residence; it doesn’t apply once the borrower has filed for bankruptcy or no longer lives in the property, and it only has to be sent once every twelve months for the same default. A lender that files suit without properly sending this notice first hasn’t met a basic precondition to bringing the case, and New York courts have dismissed cases — or denied a lender’s motion for summary judgment — over defects here.

The Notice That Has to Come With the Lawsuit Itself (RPAPL § 1303)

Once a lender does file suit, a second and separate notice — this one required under RPAPL § 1303 — has to be included with the summons and complaint when it’s served. This notice has specific formatting requirements: the title in bold, twenty-point type, the body in bold, fourteen-point type, and printed on its own page on paper that’s a different color from the rest of the papers being served, so it doesn’t get lost in the stack of legal documents a homeowner receives. New York’s appellate courts have taken this requirement seriously. In more than one case, a bank’s failure to prove it actually complied with RPAPL § 1303 has been enough, on its own, to defeat the bank’s motion for summary judgment.

Your Right to a Settlement Conference (CPLR Rule 3408)

In any residential foreclosure case, the court must hold a mandatory settlement conference within 60 days after the lender files proof that the homeowner was served. Both sides are required to appear — in person or through counsel — with someone “fully authorized to dispose of the case,” and both sides have to negotiate in good faith toward a resolution. That can include a loan modification, a short sale, a deed in lieu of foreclosure, or another form of loss mitigation.

Those options aren’t interchangeable. A loan modification changes the terms of the existing loan so the homeowner can keep the property and stay current going forward. A short sale allows the home to be sold for less than what’s owed, with the lender’s agreement, to avoid a foreclosure judgment on the homeowner’s record. A deed in lieu of foreclosure transfers the property directly to the lender outside of a foreclosure sale, which can be faster and less damaging than letting the case run its full course. Which of these makes sense depends heavily on the homeowner’s finances and how much equity, if any, is in the property.

It’s worth showing up to the conference prepared. Homeowners are generally expected to bring pay stubs and proof of income, a list of monthly expenses, mortgage statements, tax returns, and paperwork from any prior loan modification attempts. The more complete that picture is, the more the conference can actually accomplish.

Good faith isn’t optional for the lender, either. If a court finds that a plaintiff failed to negotiate in good faith, the available penalties include tolling the interest and fees that would otherwise keep accruing, civil penalties of up to $25,000, and an award of attorney’s fees to the homeowner. Simply rejecting an offer isn’t, by itself, bad faith — but unreasonable delay or disregarding the court’s process can be.

Common Defenses in a New York Foreclosure Case

A foreclosure summons is not the end of the conversation, and homeowners who respond to it — rather than letting it go by default — often have more options than they expect. Defenses that come up regularly include:

• Standing — whether the plaintiff actually owns or holds the note and mortgage today, which depends on a valid chain of assignments. Mortgages are bought and sold often, and paperwork gaps in that chain are common.
• Notice defects — the RPAPL § 1303 and § 1304 problems described above. These are procedural, but New York courts treat them as real preconditions to a valid case, not technicalities to wave away.
• Improper service — whether the summons and complaint were actually delivered the way the law requires. A case built on defective service can be dismissed outright.
• Statute of limitations — New York gives a lender six years to sue on a defaulted mortgage, measured from acceleration of the loan.
• An active bankruptcy filing — which triggers an automatic stay that pauses the foreclosure case while the bankruptcy is pending.

Some of these only work if they’re raised early, in a timely answer to the complaint — which is part of why ignoring a foreclosure summons is one of the costliest mistakes a homeowner can make.

A 2025 Ruling That Changed How Old Cases Can Come Back

In December 2022, New York passed the Foreclosure Abuse Prevention Act (FAPA), which closed a loophole lenders had used for years: voluntarily dismissing a foreclosure case and refiling it later, in an attempt to restart the six-year statute-of-limitations clock. FAPA changed that by preventing a lender from disputing whether an earlier action had validly accelerated the loan, unless that earlier case was dismissed on an explicit judicial finding that it hadn’t been.

On November 25, 2025, the New York Court of Appeals upheld FAPA as constitutional and confirmed that it applies retroactively — not only to cases still working their way through court, but to any foreclosure action where the judgment hasn’t actually been enforced yet, even one that was already final and unappealable before FAPA passed. The court reasoned that lenders never had a protected interest in the old refiling strategy, since they always had a full six-year window to bring a valid claim in the first place. In practical terms, this makes it considerably harder for a lender to revive an old, previously dismissed foreclosure case on a technicality. It also means a homeowner with a foreclosure in their history shouldn’t assume an old dismissal, or even an old final judgment, was automatically the end of it — that history is worth having reviewed.

Watch Out for Foreclosure “Rescue” Scams

Homeowners already dealing with a foreclosure case are also a common target for a different problem: predatory “foreclosure rescue” offers. New York’s Home Equity Theft Prevention Act (RPL § 265-a) exists specifically to protect homeowners in default or foreclosure from equity-purchase schemes — arrangements where someone offers to “save” the home by taking the deed, often with a promise to lease or sell it back later that doesn’t hold up. We’ve covered the same law in more detail in the context of rent-to-own and land contract arrangements, which get targeted by similar tactics. Common red flags include upfront fees to “stop” the foreclosure, pressure to sign the deed over quickly, and vague or shifting promises about buying the home back later.

What to Do If You’ve Received a Foreclosure Notice

The most common mistake is doing nothing. A foreclosure summons generally has to be answered within 20 to 30 days, and defenses that could have shortened or defeated the case can be lost if they’re never raised. Before the settlement conference, it helps to have mortgage statements, proof of income, and a list of monthly expenses gathered and ready to go. A short sale is only one of several ways a case can resolve, and which option makes sense depends on the specifics of the loan and the property.

Because timing affects both the defenses available and the loss-mitigation options on the table, it’s worth talking to a real estate attorney as soon as a notice arrives rather than waiting to see what happens next. Aronov Law NY’s foreclosure defense team represents homeowners at every stage of this process, from the first notice through the settlement conference and, where necessary, through litigation. Contact Aronov Law NY or call (718) 206-1555 to talk through your options.