Sell My House Fast in Kansas: We Buy Houses for Cash, As-Is, Any Condition

Before Any State Clock Starts: the Federal 120-Day Rule

Every state timeline on this page sits behind a federal one, and it is the single most useful thing to know if you have missed payments. Under Regulation X, 12 CFR 1024.41(f)(1), a mortgage servicer generally “shall not make the first notice or filing” required for a judicial or non-judicial foreclosure unless the borrower's mortgage loan obligation is more than 120 days delinquent.

That is roughly four months of missed payments before the state process is even allowed to begin. It is why a state sequence that looks alarmingly short on paper is usually longer in practice than the statute alone suggests.

The exceptions, because they are real. The rule does not apply where the foreclosure is based on a violation of a due-on-sale clause, or where the servicer is joining the action of a superior or subordinate lienholder. Small servicers are not exempt from this particular prohibition. Loan types and servicing arrangements vary, and some loans are outside Regulation X altogether.

So treat 120 days as the general floor rather than a guarantee, and work from the dates on your own paperwork. If a notice has arrived and you do not believe you are past that point, that is a question worth putting to a HUD-approved housing counselor or an attorney before you do anything else.

A Year To Buy It Back, And You Stay In The House

Kansas forecloses through the court, and the part that matters most is what happens after the sheriff's sale rather than before it.

Under K.S.A. 60-2414(a) the defendant owner may redeem the property at any time within 12 months from the day of sale, by paying what the certificate holder paid plus their allowable expenses, interest at the statutory rate, costs and taxes. And then this: “The defendant owner in the meantime shall be entitled to the possession of the property.” A year, in your own house, with the right to buy it back.

The part almost nobody knows. The same subsection lets a mortgagor agree in the mortgage to a shorter period, or to waive redemption entirely, except for mortgages covering agricultural land, and except for mortgages covering “single or two-family dwellings owned by or held in trust for natural persons owning or holding such dwelling as their residence”. Read that the right way round: on an ordinary Kansas home, the redemption period cannot be signed away in the mortgage.

But twelve months is not automatic, and this is where most people land. Under 60-2414(m), where the default happened before a third of the original indebtedness had been paid, the court shall order a redemption period of three months. It goes back to twelve where the court finds, on a proper showing, that the total outstanding amount of all mortgages and liens is less than a third of the market value of the property. So a newer loan usually means three months, and a well-paid-down one usually means a year. The court's order is the document that tells you which.

And moving out can shorten it further. If the court finds after a hearing, on not less than 21 days' notice to all parties, that the property has been abandoned or is not occupied in good faith, the period may be shortened or extinguished. We are not telling you to stay somewhere you cannot afford to stay, and staying does not undo a sale. We are telling you what the subsection keys on, so the decision is yours to make knowingly.

The federal rule above generally sits in front of this whole sequence. Free HUD-approved housing counseling is available before you commit to anything, including to us.

Official source: K.S.A. 60-2414

If You Lose Your Job After The Sale, Ask The Court

This is one of the most useful sentences on this page, and it is buried at the end of a subsection.

K.S.A. 60-2414(m) says that if the court finds, after a hearing with not less than 21 days' notice to all parties, that the defendant owner “has involuntarily lost such owner's primary source of income after the date of the foreclosure sale and prior to expiration of a three-month period of redemption”, the court may extend that three months by a further three.

It is discretionary, it only applies to a three-month period, and somebody has to go and ask for it. No court does this on its own, and no lender will suggest it. If you have been through a sheriff's sale on a short redemption period and then lost your job, that is a reason to talk to a Kansas attorney this week rather than next month, because the 21 days' notice has to fit inside the time you have left.

Three smaller provisions in the same section, each of which changes something practical.

• Your right to redeem is property, and it can be sold or given away. Section 60-2414(h) says the owner's redemption rights “may be assigned or transferred”, that the transferee gets the same right, and that the transferred right is not subject to levy or sale on execution. That is worth knowing, and it is a question for a Kansas attorney rather than for us.
• Where a receiver collects rent during redemption, the income generally comes back to you. Under 60-2414(l), after the receiver's fees, repairs, taxes and insurance, the income “shall go to the person who otherwise would be entitled to possession during the period of redemption”.
• The house cannot be sold twice over the same debt. Section 60-2414(k) says real estate once sold “shall not again be liable for sale for any balance due upon the judgment”, or on any inferior judgment or lien.

For the first three months of whatever period the court orders, the right to redeem is exclusive to you; after that a lien creditor may redeem for the balance. If one does so while your period is still running, section 60-2414(b) gives you the rest of it and in no event less than 14 days to redeem from them.

Official source: K.S.A. 60-2414, subsections (b), (h), (k), (l) and (m)

The Court Can Refuse To Confirm A Cheap Sale, And What A Sale Costs

Several states put a fixed floor under foreclosure bidding. Kansas does something different: it gives the court a set of tools and leaves it to judgement.

Under K.S.A. 60-2415(b) the court may decline to confirm the sale where the bid is substantially inadequate. It may, in ordering a sale or resale and after a proper hearing, fix a minimum or upset price at which the property must be bid in. Or, on the application to confirm, it may hold a hearing to establish the value of the property and require, as a condition of confirmation, that the fair value be credited against the judgment, interest, taxes and costs. The section adds that a sale for the full amount of the judgment, taxes, interest and costs “shall be deemed adequate”.

What we are not saying. These are discretionary powers. The statute says may, and every one of them needs an application and a hearing. We are not telling you your sale will be refused confirmation, or that fair value will be credited in your case. We are telling you the power exists, and that if it is going to be raised it has to be raised before confirmation, with a Kansas attorney.

How the sale itself is advertised. Under K.S.A. 60-2410(a) the officer must give public notice once each week for three consecutive weeks before the day of sale, by publication in the county where the judgment was rendered and in the county where the land is, with the last publication not less than seven nor more than fourteen days before the sale. Sales are held at the courthouse in the county seat of the county where judgment was rendered, unless a district judge orders otherwise for good cause.

What a sale costs you. Kansas does not impose a state transfer tax on the sale, so that line simply does not appear in your arithmetic as it would in most states, where it can be a percentage of the whole price. We state that as an absence rather than citing a section, because we have not read one that establishes it, and we have not established whether any county or city charges a local fee. Recording fees and the title work still apply, and your closing agent will confirm what applies to your transaction.

Official sources: K.S.A. 60-2415 and 60-2410