TrusteeSaleData
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Trustee sale glossary

Every term this site uses, defined. If a word appears in a table header or a notice on this site and is not here, that is a bug — the glossary is meant to be complete, not representative.

A trustee sale is a public auction of real property conducted by a trustee under the power of sale in a deed of trust, without a court judgment.

Trustee sale

A trustee sale is a public auction of real property conducted by a trustee under the power of sale in a deed of trust, without a court judgment.

It is the deed-of-trust equivalent of a foreclosure auction. Because no court is involved, the published notice is the only formal public record that the sale is coming.

See also: Deed of trust, Non-judicial foreclosure, Notice of trustee's sale

Notice of trustee's sale

A notice of trustee's sale is the legal notice a trustee must publish, usually in a newspaper of record, announcing the date, time, place and terms of an upcoming trustee sale.

State law sets how many times and how far in advance it must run — commonly three consecutive weeks, two to four weeks before the auction. Every record on this site is derived from one of these notices.

See also: Trustee sale, Newspaper of record

Deed of trust

A deed of trust is a security instrument in which a borrower conveys title to a neutral trustee, who holds it until the loan is repaid and may sell the property if the borrower defaults.

It replaces the mortgage in about half of US states. The difference matters: a mortgage generally requires a court to foreclose, a deed of trust does not.

See also: Trustor, Beneficiary, Trustee

Non-judicial foreclosure

A non-judicial foreclosure is a foreclosure carried out under a deed of trust's power of sale, without filing a lawsuit.

It is faster and cheaper than the judicial route — often weeks rather than months — which is why lenders use it wherever state law allows.

See also: Judicial foreclosure, Deed of trust

Judicial foreclosure

A judicial foreclosure is a foreclosure obtained by suing the borrower and getting a court order to sell the property.

It is the only route in mortgage states, and it produces court filings rather than published trustee's sale notices. Those states are outside this site's coverage.

See also: Non-judicial foreclosure

Trustee

The trustee is the neutral third party named in a deed of trust who holds title and conducts the sale if the borrower defaults.

In practice the trustee is usually a specialist firm, and it is often substituted for another firm partway through — which is why so many notices are headed 'substitute trustee's sale'.

See also: Substitute trustee, Trustor, Beneficiary

Substitute trustee

A substitute trustee is a firm appointed to replace the original trustee named in a deed of trust, typically to conduct the foreclosure.

Notices in North Carolina and Tennessee routinely use this heading. It has no effect on the sale itself; it is a change of who runs it.

See also: Trustee

Trustor

The trustor is the borrower who signed the deed of trust and conveyed title to the trustee — in most notices, the current owner of the property.

See also: Beneficiary, Deed of trust

Beneficiary

The beneficiary is the lender or its successor, the party owed the debt that the deed of trust secures.

On older loans this is frequently a securitisation trustee rather than the bank that made the loan, which is why notices name entities like 'U.S. Bank as trustee for' a named trust.

See also: Trustor, Lienholder

Lienholder

The lienholder is the party holding the secured claim against the property being sold.

See also: Beneficiary

Unpaid balance

The unpaid balance is the estimated total debt secured by the deed of trust at the time the notice was published, including principal, interest, fees and advances.

It is not the property's market value and not necessarily what the property will sell for. Notices state it as an estimate, and it is usually the largest figure in the notice.

See also: Opening bid

Opening bid

The opening bid is the amount at which bidding starts at a trustee sale, set by the beneficiary.

It is often lower than the unpaid balance, and where it is, the beneficiary is signalling willingness to take less than it is owed. Many notices omit it entirely; where a notice does not state one, this site leaves the field blank.

See also: Unpaid balance, Credit bid

Credit bid

A credit bid is a bid made by the beneficiary using the debt it is owed rather than cash.

It is why a lender can bid up to the full unpaid balance without bringing money to the auction, and why properties frequently revert to the lender.

See also: Opening bid, REO (real estate owned)

Postponement

A postponement is the continuation of a noticed trustee sale to a later date, announced at the scheduled sale or by a further published notice.

It is routine, usually meaning the borrower is negotiating, and a sale can be postponed repeatedly. This site records both dates and treats the later one as the sale date, because that is the date the auction actually happens.

See also: Trustee sale

APN (assessor's parcel number)

An APN is the identifier a county assessor assigns to a parcel of land, used to look the property up in county records.

It is the most reliable way to match a notice to a specific parcel, because street addresses in legal notices are approximate and sometimes absent.

See also: Legal description

REO (real estate owned)

REO is property that a lender has taken onto its own books after a foreclosure auction failed to produce a third-party buyer.

See also: Credit bid

Trustee sale number (T.S. number)

A trustee sale number is the file reference a trustee firm assigns to a foreclosure, printed on the notice and used to identify the sale when calling the trustee.

It is the number to quote when checking whether a sale is still going ahead.

Newspaper of record

A newspaper of record is a publication legally designated to carry public notices for a jurisdiction.

Which papers qualify is set by state law and county practice, and it is why trustee sale notices are scattered across hundreds of small local papers rather than published centrally.

See also: Notice of trustee's sale

Grounding

Grounding, on this site, means every extracted value is verified to appear in the source notice text, and any value that cannot be located there is discarded rather than published.

It is the reason a blank field here means the notice was silent, rather than meaning the extraction was uncertain.