Facebook has become one of the most common tools for many to share their daily lives with friends, and there are times people share too much. But are we facing the day when banks utilize the social media giant to deliver foreclosure notices? A recent story appeared in Time magazine, which asks this very question.
Currently, in the United States foreclosure notices are a matter of public record. Foreclosure notices are often printed in papers, and delivered by various means to defaulted homeowners, who are advised to retain a foreclosure attorney.
In 2008, an Australian court ordered a lender to deliver a foreclosure notice via Facebook when their attempts to reach the homeowner by traditional means failed, according to the Time magazine article. Since that ruling, courts in Canada, New Zealand and England have given lenders the approval to notify homeowners through Facebook.
As the Time article points out, these countries have not had the problem of “robo-signing” that has been common in the US. Because of these fast-tracked documents, many people have been subjected to wrongful-foreclosures, and a foreclosure lawyer is crucial to their defense.
In the US, sending legal notices through electronic means like email is permitted as long as the mortgage holder has given permission in their originating documents.
Attorney Joseph DeMarco, co-chair of the American Bar Association pointed out that social media is useful to serve legal notices to people who appear to “only exist online.”
Regardless of the means of delivery, anyone given a foreclosure notice should immediately contact an expert foreclosure attorney.
