The North Dakota foreclosure process, in plain English
North Dakota works backwards from the states around it. Your right to catch up is front loaded into a single thirty day window that closes before the lawsuit is even filed, and your breathing room comes afterwards, in sixty days of redemption during which you keep living in the house. If you are reading this because a notice arrived, the thirty day clock is the one that matters.
Your window to catch up closes before the lawsuit starts
How North Dakota forecloses: Judicial foreclosure through district court. North Dakota is judicial only. N.D.C.C. 35-22-01 reserves power-of-sale foreclosure for mortgages held by the state and its agencies, so a bank, credit union or servicer has to sue you in district court even if your mortgage document contains a power of sale clause. You will be served with a summons and a complaint, and there is a judge and a docket.
The sequence, step by step
- Your servicer has to reach out
Within 36 to 45 days of a missed payment
Federal rules require your servicer to make live contact about loss mitigation and then follow up in writing. Answering that contact costs you nothing and starts a paper trail.
- Federal waiting period
120 days delinquent
Under 12 CFR 1024.41(f) a servicer cannot make the first filing for foreclosure until the loan is more than 120 days delinquent. Federal law, not North Dakota law, is what keeps this from starting sooner.
- Notice before foreclosure arrives
30 to 90 days before any lawsuit
N.D.C.C. 32-19-20 requires written notice to the record title owner at least thirty days and not more than ninety days before the foreclosure action is commenced. N.D.C.C. 32-19-21 says what it must contain: the property description, the date and amount of the mortgage, the amount needed to bring the installments current with taxes, insurance and maintenance advances itemized separately, and a statement that foreclosure will begin if you do not pay within thirty days. If the lender then sits on that notice for more than ninety days, it has to serve a new one.
- Your thirty days to cure
30 days from service of that notice
This is the window. N.D.C.C. 32-19-28 says that if you perform the conditions you defaulted on within thirty days of service, the mortgage is reinstated and stays in full force as though the default had never happened. The figure is the arrears, not the whole loan.
- The lawsuit is filed
After the thirty days lapse
A summons and complaint are served and the case is in district court. Because a judge is involved, servicing failures can be raised as a defense in the case rather than requiring you to file your own lawsuit to stop a sale. The statutes that used to let you stop the case by paying the arrears after filing, N.D.C.C. 32-19-12 and 32-19-13, were repealed in 2005.
- Judgment and sheriff's sale
Months later, depending on the county
If judgment is entered, the sheriff sells the property. Court calendars and sale scheduling vary a great deal between Cass and Burleigh counties and the rural ones.
- Sixty days to redeem, and you stay
60 days after the sale
N.D.C.C. 32-19-18 gives a party to the foreclosure sixty days after the sale to redeem. N.D.C.C. 28-24-11 entitles you to possession, rents, use and benefit of the property for that whole period. Redeeming means paying the sale amount, not the arrears.
The four questions everyone asks
Can I catch up and stop it?
Yes, but only inside a thirty day window that closes before the lawsuit
N.D.C.C. 32-19-28 lets you reinstate by curing the default within thirty days of the notice before foreclosure, and the amount is the arrears rather than the accelerated balance. After those thirty days there is no statutory right to reinstate: the sections that used to allow it after filing, 32-19-12 and 32-19-13, were repealed in 2005. Your servicer may still agree to reinstate, and most do, but that is its decision and not your right. If you have come here from Utah, Idaho, Montana or Wyoming assuming you have until shortly before the sale, that assumption is wrong in North Dakota.
Deadline: 30 days from service of the notice before foreclosure
Can I get it back after the sale?
Yes, 60 days after the sheriff's sale, with possession
N.D.C.C. 32-19-18 gives sixty days from the sale to redeem, and N.D.C.C. 28-24-11 keeps possession, rents, use and benefit with you for that period. Agricultural land runs on a different clock, 365 days from the filing of the summons and complaint, but never ending earlier than sixty days after the sale. One serious exception: under N.D.C.C. 32-19-19 a court can eliminate the redemption period entirely and hand over immediate possession if it finds the property abandoned, and N.D.C.C. 32-19-23.1 sets a low bar for showing that. Moving out to avoid the stress is how people lose both the sixty days and the right to stay.
Can they come after me for the shortfall?
No, on an owner occupied home that meets the statute
N.D.C.C. 32-19-03 bars a deficiency judgment in a foreclosure of residential property of four or fewer units, on up to forty contiguous acres, containing a residence occupied by the owner as a homestead. All three conditions have to hold, and the owner occupancy one is the one that catches people who have already moved out. Agricultural land over forty acres allows a deficiency limited to the debt less fair market value at the commencement of the action. Everything else allows a deficiency measured against a court appointed appraiser's value.
How long does all of this take?
Typically eight to fourteen months from your first missed payment to a sheriff's sale in an uncontested case, and longer if it is contested, if a complete loss mitigation application is in play, or if service has to be by publication. These are estimates built from the fixed parts of the statute, not a number the statute gives.
These are typical ranges, not promises. Bankruptcy filings, a complete loss mitigation application, or a signed purchase contract can all extend them.
Free help in North Dakota that is not us
These are free and independent. We list them because you should have somewhere to check our answers against.
- North Dakota Housing Finance Agency, homeowner assistance
State housing agency help for homeowners facing delinquency and foreclosure. Call 701-328-1907 to confirm what is currently open.
- Legal Services of North Dakota
Free civil legal help, housing included. 1-800-634-5263, or 1-866-621-9886 if you are 60 or older.
- HUD approved housing counselors in North Dakota
NDHFA's directory of free, independent counseling agencies
Where this comes from
So you can check it yourself, or hand it to an attorney.
N.D.C.C. 32-19-01 (foreclosure by action), 32-19-03 (deficiency), 32-19-18 (redemption), 32-19-19 (abandonment), 32-19-20 and 32-19-21 (notice before foreclosure), 32-19-23.1 (abandonment evidence), 32-19-28 (reinstatement). N.D.C.C. 28-24-11 (possession during redemption), 28-24-16. N.D.C.C. 35-22-01 (power of sale restricted to state held mortgages). Sections 32-19-12 and 32-19-13 repealed 2005. Federal: 12 CFR 1024.41.
The information on this site is general education about state foreclosure procedure. It is not legal advice, and laws change. Talk to a licensed attorney in your state about your specific situation.