Trustee approval time for mortgage

[davidson]

On Friday the judge did sign off. I did write the court suggestions to improve their processes to avoid putting potential home owners in a bad situation. I am thinking of studying laws or the political system so I can help make a change to make this faster. I think the government should be able to help the people they serve and with delays it can actually hurt them.

[justbroke]

davidson I like that you wrote suggestions, but the delays are to protect the interest of creditors.

For example, my district requires notice sent to all creditors and although we can use negative noticing, that's still at least 14 days + 3 days for mailing. That means a minimum of 17 days if you get everything into the mail the same day. If that 17th day falls on Saturday, add 2 more days so you're now at 19 days. If that Monday is a holiday, add another day, and you're at a minimum of 20 days. (This is the standard rule across districts unless they modified it with a local rule.)

Then the attorney, on day 17-20 depending on the circumstances, must file a motion for entry of an order granting the motion to incur debt and affirm that no creditor responded, so it's unopposed. Then you have to wait for the judge to get to the proposed orders. This is actually faster than normal. With negative noticing this can take about 17+1+1 or 19 days if everything is perfect. The reality is that it's usually at least 21 days. (If a court doesn't use negative noticing then you must wait for a hearing.) So this is about the fastest it can go.

The court is doing a bunch of other things as well, hearings, WebEx meetings, holidays, and even trials. Unfortunately this type of order requires the judge's signature and requires the waiting periods. I think that 21 days is a good benchmark number to use when everything goes perfectly. I don't practice law, but I can see attorneys telling their clients that they need expect 30 days between the filing of the motion to incur debt and the approval by the court.

Since I would expect 30 days, it's usually easy to get a 30, 45, or even 60-day lock on a mortgage (I think 30-days is a normal lock and many do 45-day locks without extra cost). The rest is up to how long the seller wants to wait to close the deal. There's really not much a debtor can do with a seller that has their own deadlines (e.g. the seller must close so they can buy another house on a contingent sale).

Thoughts on the Law
I think you'll find, once you study law, that a court of equity has a particular balancing act it must do. For a bonafide emergency, it can act very quickly. Think of an emergency order approving incurring debt to fix a water-main break in a home. However, the purchase of a home is not enough of an emergency to weigh approving that quickly over the rights of the creditors. At least that's how I like to think of it.

Congratulations
I'm glad that the order was finally approved and I hope that the lender can get this done. I'm in the process of buying another home and it is exciting. I'm going through the lending process now, but since it's a new build I'm not even in the lock period yet. I wish you the best.