If you're a homeowner who can't keep up with your mortgage payments and are facing foreclosure, there are steps you can take for foreclosure prevention and get foreclosure assistance.

If you have missed less than three payments on a mortgage or anticipate having to miss mortgage payments in the months ahead simply due to life circumstances, now is the time to learn the proper steps to prevent foreclosure.

All is not lost even for a homeowner who has already missed three or more payments and the lender has began formal foreclosure proceedings. Click over and check out The Foreclosure Survival Handbook to get foreclosure info and find out how you may be able to stave off a home foreclosure, save your home, protect your credit rating as best possible, and maybe even save $1,000's of dollars in the process.

Don't get confused by misuses or misconceptions concerning home foreclosures. Understand the stages of the foreclosure process:

1. Missed Mortgage Payments
Most states offer some protection in that the homeowner must fall at least 90 days in arrears before the lien holder can legitimately start foreclosure proceeding. So if you are less than three months behind you are not in foreclosure. However, this is a very critical time in the home foreclosure process in that this is the stage that as a homeowner you have the most leverage and options in regards to working out a compromise or possibly reworking your mortgage.

2. Pre-Foreclosure
When a homeowner has not made payments for at least 90 days, the lien holder will record a public notice stating that the homeowner is in default of their mortgage. This is also the time when the lien holder will notify the homeowner via mail that they are in default of their mortgage and foreclosure proceedings are beginning.
At this stage the homeowner now has a grace period of 90 days to cure the default by bringing the payments up to date. If you have not already contacted the lien holder, now is definitely the time to do so. The Foreclosure Survival Handbook has great advise in this area showing you who to talk to and in what order they need to be contacted to prevent your foreclosure sale.

3. Auction
If the homeowner has not been able to resolve the delinquency within 90 days after the Notice of Default was issued, the lien holder or an appointed representative will set a date for the property to be sold at auction. The Notice of Trustee Sale is recorded with the County Recorder's Office, delivered to the homeowner, posted on the door of the property and published in a local newspaper -- to make sure everyone knows when and where the auction will be.

4. Post Foreclosure
If the auction was unsuccessful and the property did not sell at the foreclosure auction, the lien holder will take ownership of the home. The home now becomes what is commonly called a bank owned property, or a REO, which is short for Real Estate Owned by lender.
Bank owned or REOs are usually sold by one of two methods. The bank will either list the property with a local realtor for sale, or some banks prefer to sell the properties at an REO auction.

If you are behind on mortgage payments, above all else, face reality and take a very close look at your financial situation. Many homeowners simply sit in denial until it is to late for foreclosure prevention. Get on the Internet go to the library and search to find everything you can so you have a full understanding of the home foreclosure process. Knowledge IS power, and the more a homeowner knows the better they are equipped to stop bank foreclosure and save their home.