- Organization type
- Private organization of post foreclosure specialists and advocates
- Who we help
- Former homeowners and heirs
- Where
- All 50 states and D.C.
- Cost to you
- No out-of-pocket expense
- How we are paid
- A completion fee from the recovered surplus
- Court filings
- A licensed attorney where your state requires one
Who we are
SurplusFundsRecovery.org is run by a private organization of post foreclosure specialists and advocates.
How we are paid
No out-of-pocket expense. Our only payment is a completion fee taken from the surplus once it is recovered.
Court and probate filings
Where your state requires a licensed attorney for a court or probate filing, a licensed attorney handles it, and you still pay nothing out of pocket.
This website is published by a private organization of post foreclosure specialists and advocates. The work is narrow on purpose: finding money left over after a foreclosure or tax sale, proving who it belongs to, and getting it into that person’s hands. This page explains who stands behind the pages, how the work is paid for, and the lines the organization does not cross.
Who publishes this website
The publisher is a private organization of post foreclosure specialists and advocates that helps former homeowners and their heirs, working nationwide across every state as well as the District of Columbia. The work is narrow: finding money left over after a foreclosure or tax sale, proving whose it is, and getting it released. Public offices are named on these pages for one reason: they hold the records, or they hold the money, and a claimant needs to know which office does which before anything else.
The people who do the work are described on these pages as post foreclosure specialists and advocates. An advocate is the single point of contact for a claimant: the person who deals with the trustee, the clerk of court, the county office or the state program so the claimant does not have to learn five bureaucracies in a month.
What the specialists actually do
The organization does the work rather than handing a claimant a form and an invoice. In practice that means verifying identity and ownership, drawing up authorizations and affidavits, arranging notarizations, tracking down and verifying a will or a trust where one exists, opening a probate if the estate needs one, assembling the claim packet a trustee, county or court will accept, and making the filings.
It also means paying for all of that first. Filing fees, certified copies of deeds and death certificates, recording charges and notary costs are advanced by the organization, not billed to the claimant.
What it costs a claimant
There is no out-of-pocket expense paid by claimants. The payment is a completion fee taken out of the surplus, once the funds are actually recovered. It is written into the agreement before any work begins, so nobody learns the number after the fact, and nothing is owed if nothing is recovered.
That model exists because of who the claimants are. Someone who has just lost a home to a foreclosure sale does not have a retainer to spare, and a claim period is often running while they are still moving boxes.
Where a licensed attorney comes in
Some of this work belongs to lawyers, and the organization treats that line as fixed. Where your state requires a licensed attorney for a court or probate filing, a licensed attorney handles it, and you still pay nothing out of pocket.
A few states go further and reserve more than the filing. In at least one, a surplus claim brought by somebody who had been living in the foreclosed home can only be handled through a licensed attorney there, with no role for a non-attorney at all. Which rule governs depends entirely on where the property sold, so the state pages are the place to check that before anything else.
The specialists prepare and file the paperwork and deal with the offices holding the money. Read the papers you were served, and take a real dispute over who owns the money, such as a fight over title or heirship, to a licensed attorney or a legal aid office in the state where the sale happened.
Where the specialists earn their place
One owner, one sale, no liens behind the foreclosed loan and money still sitting with the trustee is a straightforward claim, and what it takes to qualify sets out the steps an office will expect. Most claims are harder than that.
What the specialists add is the harder half. Tracing money that has already moved to a court registry, a county fund or a state program. Finding and proving heirs, and opening a probate when the estate needs one. Answering junior lienholders who want the same dollars. Advancing costs. Holding the deadline while documents are collected from three offices. The engagement is described step by step, and the scam guide shows how to test any offer you receive.
Questions about about
A private organization of post foreclosure specialists and advocates that recovers surplus funds for former homeowners and heirs. When a public office is named on these pages, it is because that office holds the records or the money a claim depends on.
The specialists put claim packets together, gather proof and deal with the offices holding money. Anything a state reserves to lawyers is done by a licensed attorney. Take a dispute over who owns the money to a licensed attorney, or to a legal aid office where the property sold.
Claimants are helped nationwide, in every state and in the District of Columbia. Surplus rules are set state by state, so the work starts by identifying the system the sale ran under and the office holding the money, then following that state's procedure.
When the owner has died, when a court is holding the funds, when another lienholder wants the same money, or when a deadline is close. The specialists clear those hurdles, advance the costs, and keep the claim moving while the family has other things to handle.