First, I'd like to give everyone a reminder that Commissioners are not professional foreclosure auctioneers. They are regular attorneys who specialize in things such as estate planning, divorces, even criminal law, but never foreclosures. These attorneys with random other specializations get assigned these foreclosure cases by the court. They do just a few of them a year, so it is understandable that they may not be experts at it. That said, I've written many times before about paying close attention to the details. The auction is required to be advertised in the paper 30 days before, and it must be advertised for 3 consecutive weeks.
I attended a court confirmation today for one that had only been in the paper twice. The commissioner didn't catch it, the bank's attorney didn't catch it, the defendant didn't catch it... but the judge did! She denied the Motion to Confirm and sent the property back to auction since it had only been advertised twice.
As you're doing your due diligence, make sure you check the bottom of the newspaper advertisement. It will show the three dates it is published. If you don't see 3 dates listed, you better have a conversation with the commissioner!
Example of a recent correct publication: (HTH1528698 5/24, 5/31, 6/7/2026) 3 dates.
The publication in question today: (WHT1517229 1/22, 1/29/26) Whoops! Only 2 dates!
What concerns me even more than this is... what if the judge hadn't caught this? What if you bought this at auction, and three years later the defendant decides to have someone look over the case and a new savvy attorney sees there were only two advertisements? Would the defendant be able to undo the foreclosure due to this error? And if so, what would happen to your investment? Things to ponder and reasons to be very diligent!
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