Mississippi Foreclosure Laws

If you are a residential homeowner who is or may soon be facing foreclosure in Mississippi, this article will help you locate the law governing the foreclosure process in your state and summarize the key information you will need to know. This article will help you answer the following questions:

1. What foreclosure process is most common in Mississippi?
2. What rights do you have to cure a default and reinstate your mortgage?
3. Will you be personally liable for any deficiency remaining after the foreclosure sale?

Locating Mississippi’s Foreclosure Laws

To find out what is covered in Mississippi’s foreclosure laws, you need to turn to Mississippi’s statutes. The citation to Mississippi’s foreclosure law is Mississippi Code Sections 89-1-53 to 89-1-63.

Mississippi’s foreclosure statutes can be found by taking the following steps:

1. Start at the website of the Mississippi State Legislature at http://billstatus.ls.state.ms.us.
2. Mouse over “General Information” and click “Mississippi Code of 1972” from the drop-down menu. You will be taken to an external website maintained by LexisNexis, the official publisher of the Mississippi Code of 1972 annotated.
3. Click “I Agree” to agree to the terms and conditions of use of the website.
4. Scroll down to “Title 89. Real and Personal Property.” Click the plus sign to expand the contents contained in Title 89.
5. Click the plus sign next to “Chapter 1. Land and Conveyances.”
6. Click the plus sign next to the subchapter titled “In General.”
7. Scroll down to find Section 89-1-53, which is the first section of Mississippi’s foreclosure law. Click on the section you are interested in to read the language of the statute.

Summary of Mississippi’s Foreclosure Laws

A summary of the most important information in Mississippi’s foreclosure laws relevant to residential homeowners is presented below. Because nonjudicial foreclosures are the most common type of foreclosure in Mississippi, this information focuses on nonjudicial foreclosures.

Nonjudicial Foreclosure

A mortgage lender does not need to sue a borrower in court to foreclose. Once a borrower has defaulted on his or her mortgage, the lender may exercise its power of sale granted by the borrower in the deed of trust or mortgage. Miss. Code Ann. § 89-1-63.

Notice Requirements

The mortgage lender or trustee must publish an advertisement of the foreclosure sale in a newspaper of general circulation in the county where the property is located. The advertisement must be published for three consecutive weeks prior to the foreclosure. The lender or trustee must also post notice at the courthouse in the county where the property is located. The notice must include the name of the original borrower. Miss. Code Ann. § 89-1-55.

Right to Cure

A homeowner may, at any time prior to the foreclosure sale, prevent the sale by making any missed payments on the mortgage or by curing any other deficiency, as well as paying for the mortgage lender’s foreclosure fees or expenses. Miss. Code Ann. § 89-1-59.

Right of Redemption

A homeowner in Mississippi does not have a statutory right to redeem his or her property after the foreclosure sale takes place.

Deficiency Judgments

In Mississippi, a lender may pursue a deficiency judgment against a borrower. Miss. Code Ann. § 11-5-111.