Finding Foreclosure Help in Iowa

Finding Foreclosure Help in Iowa

Foreclosure prevention counseling services are provided free of charge by nonprofit housing counseling agencies working in partnership with the Federal Government. These agencies are funded, in part, by HUD and NeighborWorks® America. There is no need to pay a private company for these services.

Des Moines Field Office

210 Walnut Street
Room 239
Des Moines, IA 50309-2155

Phone: (515) 284-4512
Fax: (515) 284-4743

TTY: (515) 284-4728

Jurisdiction: State of Iowa

Bruce Ray
Field Office Director

Office Hours: 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Monday through Friday

Iowa Foreclosure Laws Summary

Quick Facts:

Judicial foreclosure process is available.
Non-judicial foreclosure process is not available.
The primary security instruments are mortgages.
The timeline can vary by process, which typically takes 150 days.
The borrower has no rights of redemption.
The lender may not sue for deficiency judgements.
Lenders in Iowa may use the judicial or alternative to non-judicial foreclosure process to foreclose on mortgages in default.

Judicial Foreclosure
A complaint must be filed by the lender to obtain a decree of sale for a foreclosure process to start. When the court finds the borrower in default, he will give the borrower some time to settle all of his debts. If he is unable to cure the default, the foreclosure sale will then be continued.

A notice of sale must be put up in public places around the county, with one being posted in the courthouse. Two weekly ads must also be published in the county newspaper, with the first ad published at least 4 weeks before the sale. Another notice must also be sent to the borrower at least 20 days before the sale.

The sale will be by public auction, which will be presided over by the sheriff anytime between 9am-4pm. Before the sale, written bids may be given to the sheriff, together with the payment for the property. The written bids are sealed until the day of the auction comes where the bids will be opened and announced by the sheriff. Losing bidders will have their money returned to them.

A sale can postponed up to 3 days only, and the announcement of the postponement should be done during the originally scheduled date.

Alternative Non-Judicial Foreclosure
The whole filing of a suit to foreclose may be avoided if the borrower willingly gives up the property and transfers all his rights to the property over to the lender. When the lender accepts, he will automatically become the new owner of the property but he will lose the right to sue for a deficiency judgement.

For this process to be official, both the borrower and the lender must sign a “disclosure of notice and cancellation” which says that the borrower willingly gave up his rights to the property, and that the lender has accepted this as payment.