The Chicago Tribune reported that the average time for a foreclosure in Cook County was 682 days. That’s about 22 months and it sure seems like a long, long time to me. Plus, that’s the average, so many cases took much longer.

I hate to be a contrarian, but lately my experience is that foreclosures are going faster, not slower.  My own purely unscientific guess is that 14 months is about the norm in most cases.

There are two factors that are at work in determining the length of a foreclosure:

1.) When the bank obtains the Judgment of Foreclosure.

2.) How fast a Sheriff’s Sale can be set up in your county.

I should back up a minute and say that I am only talking about uncontested foreclosures here, meaning that you or your attorney did not file an appearance in the case and you are not actively defending the foreclosure. If you file an appearance in the case, show up to plead your case and/or file contested motions, the case can stretch on for many moons. In Lake County, IL it takes about 8 months to get a hearing date for a contested motion. By the time the parties get to court, no one even remembers what the issue was.

Let’s take a look at the two factors that affect the length of a foreclosure:

1.) When the bank obtains the Judgment of Foreclosure.

The faster that the bank gets a “judgment of foreclosure,” the faster the case will move. The pic below shows a fast moving case. (As you can see, my dream is to be a graphic artist.)

Here the bank gets its judgment of foreclosure before the redemption period expires. The redemption period (the owner’s right to sell the property even though they are behind on payments) has to expire before the sheriff’s sale can be held and the owner officially loses the property.

This pic shows a slow moving case. It’s slow because the bank dinks around and waits until after the 7 month redemption period is over to get the judgment of foreclosure. Doing this extends the redemption period another 3 months and slows the case down. (The redemption period is 7 months from service of summons or 3 months from the entry of judgment of foreclosure, whichever is later.)

2.) What county you live in.

In Cook County, the sheriff’s sales are handled by many outside companies, not the sheriff, so the sales are scheduled within 30 days of the redemption period expiring. Like clockwork, your Cook County sheriff’s sale will follow within 30 days of the redemption period expiring, so it is by far the fastest county in that regard. This company seems to handle a large share of the Cook County cases.

Will, Lake and Kane Counties are slow because the sheriff handles the sales and they are still overrun with cases, so it can take 4-6 months to schedule the sheriff’s sale.

So most Cook County cases are on the express track these days, while the collar counties are by and large slower.