Local Kansas City Foreclosure Home Buyers
Sell Your House Fast to Avoid Foreclosure in Kansas City
A Kansas City sale date and a shortfall nobody has explained. Find out where you stand, and what free help comes before any offer.
What This Page Helps You Figure Out
- Which of the two very different systems applies to your house, Missouri or Kansas
- What free help exists, and why it is worth using before you talk to any buyer
- What a sale does and does not fix, including the parts nobody advertises
- What your realistic options are, including the ones that do not involve us
Not sure what stage you are at? Call 816-895-2999 and we will help you work it out, whether or not you sell to us.
Key Takeaways
- Before you talk to any buyer, including us, speak to a HUD approved housing counselor. It is free, they do not want to buy your house, and they can tell you about options a buyer has no reason to mention. A HUD approved housing counseling agency can be found by area.
- Missouri and Kansas run structurally different systems. Missouri usually forecloses by trustee’s sale under a deed of trust with no court involved. Kansas foreclosure goes through the district court. Advice written for one is not advice for the other.
- In Missouri, mailed notice is required not less than twenty days before the sale, and the statute says actual receipt is not necessary for the lender to have complied. Not having seen a letter is not a defense.
- Missouri redemption after a sale is narrower than most pages say. It only arises where the lender itself buys at the sale, and only if you gave written notice at the sale or within ten days before it. Most people learn about it after both conditions have already passed.
- Kansas gives a defendant owner a redemption period after the sale, and its length depends on how much of the original debt had been repaid before the default.
- If your house is in Kansas and in a pending foreclosure, a buyer taking a transfer of your rights has to give you a written statement warning that you may still owe money afterwards and that your credit may still be affected. That is the state’s own wording, not ours.
How do you sell a house to avoid foreclosure in Kansas City?
The first thing to establish is not the price. It is where you actually are, because the answer changes what is still possible. Missed payments, a formal demand, a published notice and a scheduled sale are four different positions, and people arrive at this page believing they are further along than they are more often than the reverse.
What does pre-foreclosure actually mean in Kansas City?
Loosely, it means the loan is in default but the property has not yet been sold. It is not a legal status with one definition, which is why it is used so freely. In practice the useful question is whether a sale date has been set and, if it has, what notice has already gone out.
Everything is still possible before a sale date. Reinstatement, where you bring the loan current, and a payoff from a sale, are both routes that exist right up until the property is sold. What narrows as time passes is not usually your options but the amount you would need to cover, because fees and costs accrue.
What should you find out before you talk to any buyer?
- Which state the property is in, because Missouri and Kansas run structurally different systems.
- Whether a sale date has been scheduled, and if so what date.
- Whether the loan is one you could reinstate if you had help, and what the lender says that figure is.
- What your servicer’s loss mitigation department has actually offered you in writing, as opposed to what you assume they would say.
A HUD approved housing counselor will work through all four with you at no cost. That is not a formality on this page. It is the first thing on the list because it is free, it is independent of anybody who wants to buy the house, and it exists precisely for this situation.
How does the foreclosure process work in Kansas City, Missouri and on the Kansas side?
They are not variations of one process. Missouri usually forecloses without a court at all, through a trustee’s sale under a deed of trust. Kansas foreclosure runs through the district court. That single difference changes the notice you get, who decides what, and what happens afterwards.
Missouri: a trustee’s sale, with no court involved
Under RSMo 443.410, a deed of trust can be foreclosed by trustee’s sale at the option of the holder of the debt, in addition to being foreclosable by suit. In practice the trustee’s sale is the route used, which means no judge reviews it before it happens.
What the law requires instead is notice. Under RSMo 443.320 the sale must be advertised, and in counties containing a city of fifty thousand people or more, that means publication at least twenty times in a daily newspaper, continued to the day of the sale. Which counties in this metro meet that test is worth confirming with an attorney rather than assuming. Elsewhere it is four successive weekly issues, the last no more than a week before the sale.
Separately, under RSMo 443.325, the foreclosing party must mail notice by certified or registered post not less than twenty days before the scheduled sale, to the record owner as shown forty days beforehand and to the mortgagor. Read that section carefully, because it also says actual receipt by the addressee is not necessary to establish compliance. In other words, the notice requirement can be satisfied by a letter you never opened.
One thing worth knowing if you are looking backwards rather than forwards: the notice period in your own deed of trust matters. There is a Missouri case in which a deed of trust required thirty days and less was given, and that was an irregularity for which the sale would be set aside. If you think the process was not followed, that is a question for an attorney rather than for a buyer.
Kansas: through the district court
Kansas foreclosure is judicial. The lender files an action in the district court for the county where the property is, and the process runs as litigation, with the court involved from the start rather than not at all.
The practical differences for a homeowner are that there is a case with a number, there are documents served on you, there are deadlines you can respond to, and there is a judge. That is more process than Missouri, not less, and more process generally means more time and more points at which something can be raised.
It also means the sale that eventually happens is a sheriff’s sale ordered by the court, and what follows it is governed by statute in a way the Missouri trustee’s sale is not. That is covered in the section on what happens after a sale, because the position after the sale is where the two states diverge most sharply and where most of what is written online is wrong.
Who buys houses from homeowners facing foreclosure in Kansas City?
Rex Buys KC is run by Rex Rodenbaugh out of 124 Missouri Ave, Ste 202, Kansas City, MO 64106, and has been buying in this metro since 2014. We are a Kansas City buyer that works with people who are behind, on both sides of the state line, which matters here because the two states run different systems and the right question is different depending on which one you are in.
Here is what a sale to us actually is, in plain terms. If you sell, the proceeds go through the closing agent and are applied to what you owe. Where they cover the loan and the costs, the loan is satisfied and the foreclosure ends because the debt has been paid, not because we did anything to the legal process. We cannot stop, pause or reverse a foreclosure, nobody outside your lender and the court can, and any buyer telling you otherwise is describing something they cannot do.
We are not a brokerage, we do not list houses, and we are not a housing counselor. That last one matters most on this page. A counselor is free, independent, and able to talk to your servicer about options that keep you in the house. We buy houses. Those are different jobs and you should use the free one first.
What working with us looks like
- A written offer with the arithmetic shown, so you can compare it to your payoff figure
- No repairs, no cleaning and no showings before an offer
- We tell you to speak to a HUD approved counselor before you accept anything
- In Kansas, we follow the written agreement and disclosure the statute requires
- Ask us for proof of funds, and ask every buyer you speak to for the same
- If reinstating or a short sale serves you better, we say so
What happens after a foreclosure sale in Missouri or Kansas?
This is where the two states separate most, and where most of what is published about Kansas City is wrong. Both states have something called redemption. In Kansas it is a period that runs after the sale. In Missouri it is available only in narrow circumstances and depends on something you have to do before or at the sale, which is why most people never get it.
Missouri redemption, and the two conditions nobody mentions
RSMo 443.410 does provide a right to redeem within one year from the date of the sale. Almost every page that mentions Missouri redemption stops there, and stopping there is misleading, because the statute attaches two conditions and both are easy to miss.
The first is about who buys. The right arises only where the property at the sale is bought in by the holder of the debt, or by another person for that holder. If a third party buys it for themselves, there is no redemption. A Missouri annotation records exactly that: a purchaser who bought for himself rather than on behalf of the debt holder, and a mortgagor with no cause of action for redemption.
The second is about notice, and it is the one that catches people. The person entitled to redeem must give written notice at the sale, or within ten days before the date advertised for the sale. That means the step which preserves the right happens before or at the moment the property is sold, not afterwards when somebody finally explains what redemption is.
If you are in Missouri and there is a sale date on the horizon, that is a specific question to put to an attorney now rather than later. Not because this page can tell you the answer, but because the window for the answer to matter is the one you are currently in. Whether any redemption right is available in your case depends on your loan documents and on what has already happened, so confirm it with a Missouri attorney before you rely on it.
Kansas redemption
Kansas works differently. Under K.S.A. 60-2414 the defendant owner has a period of redemption that runs from the day of sale, and the general period is twelve months, though where the default happened before one third of the original debt had been paid, the court must order three months instead of twelve.
What that means in practice is that in Kansas the sale is not necessarily the end of your interest in the property, and a right of redemption is itself something of value. Which is why Kansas regulates people who try to buy it from you.
The Kansas statute that regulates buyers like us
This is worth reading twice, because it is unusual for a page like this to tell you about it. K.S.A. 58-2342 applies where somebody takes a transfer or assignment of the rights of an owner who is a defendant in a pending foreclosure, in property that is their residence. It exists because those rights have value and the people holding them are under pressure.
The statute requires the agreement to be in writing, with all terms set out in detail, dated and signed by everybody, and requires the buyer to give the seller copies of both the agreement and a disclosure statement. It sets out what that disclosure has to say.
Among the things Kansas obliges the buyer to put in front of the seller: that if they sell their rights and the residence is foreclosed on, they may still be responsible for amounts still owed if the sale does not raise enough to cover the mortgage and the foreclosure costs, and that a foreclosure is likely to be reported to those who keep credit histories and might injure their credit rating. It also records that this is a serious matter and that they may wish to consult an attorney first.
There is a rescission right, exercisable by certified mail within five business days. And if the buyer does not comply with the statute, the transfer is voidable at the seller’s election. If a buyer in Kansas is not putting all of that in front of you, that tells you something about the buyer.
Does selling before a foreclosure sale in Kansas City clear everything?
Not automatically, and this is the part that gets left out. If a sale does not raise enough to cover what is owed plus costs, the shortfall does not simply disappear because the house changed hands. What happens to it depends on the loan, the state and the lender.
What is a deficiency?
The gap between what the property produces and what the debt and costs come to. Where a sale covers everything, there is no gap and the question does not arise. Where it does not, the remaining balance is a debt somebody has to decide what to do about.
Whether a lender pursues it, and whether it can, depends on the loan documents, on which state the property is in, and on the lender’s own commercial decision. Nobody can tell you from a web page which of those applies to you, and any buyer who tells you a sale clears the debt without having read your loan is guessing with your money.
What you can do is ask, specifically and in writing. If you are negotiating a short sale, whether the lender releases you from the deficiency is a separate question from whether they approve the sale, and the two do not automatically travel together. That is the single most important sentence in this section.
What about my credit?
This page will not tell you what will happen to your credit file, and you should be careful with any page that does. What is reported, by whom, and what effect it has depends on your servicer, on what is actually reported, and on the rest of your file.
What can be said is what Kansas puts in writing. The disclosure that state law requires a buyer to hand an owner in a pending foreclosure says a foreclosure is likely to be reported to those who keep credit histories and might injure their credit rating, and that selling your rights may still leave you owing money. A state that regulates this transaction chose that wording. It is more useful than a promise.
A HUD approved housing counselor can talk through the credit question with you properly, alongside the options. They are free and they are not trying to buy anything from you.
What are your options if you are behind on a mortgage in Kansas City?
Short sale or a cash offer? How the foreclosure changes the comparison in KC
A short sale is where the lender agrees to accept less than the full balance so a sale can complete. It is a route when the debt exceeds what the property will fetch, and it needs the lender’s approval, which takes time and is not guaranteed.
A sale to a direct buyer does not need lender approval where the proceeds cover the debt, because the loan simply gets paid. Where they do not cover it, you are back in short sale territory whoever the buyer is, and the buyer’s speed is not the constraint. The lender is.
So the honest comparison is not short sale against cash offer. It is whether there is enough equity to pay the loan off at all. If there is, a direct sale is a genuine option. If there is not, the lender is in the middle of every route and the question becomes which one they will approve, and on what terms about the shortfall.
| Option | Best fit | What to know |
|---|---|---|
| Reinstate or work it out with the servicer | Anyone whose problem was temporary and is now resolved or resolving. | Keeps the house, which none of the other rows do. Needs a figure from the servicer and often help to negotiate. This is what a free HUD approved counselor is for and it is the first call, not the last. |
| List it on the open market | Equity in the property, and enough time before any sale date. | Normally the highest price, which matters most when the proceeds have to cover a debt. Needs the house to be presentable and needs time you may or may not have. Talk to an agent about the date on your letter before ruling it in or out. |
| Sell direct to a buyer like us | Equity that covers the debt, a house that will not show well, or a date close enough that a listing is not realistic. | Below open market price. Where the proceeds cover the loan and costs, the debt is satisfied out of the sale. Get the offer in writing with the arithmetic shown and ask for evidence of funds. |
| Short sale | Where the debt exceeds what the property is worth. | Requires the lender’s agreement and their timetable governs. Ask separately and in writing whether they will release you from any shortfall, because approval of the sale and release of the deficiency are two different things. |
| Deed in lieu of foreclosure | Where there is no equity and no sale is achievable. | Handing the property to the lender by agreement. It is a negotiation, not a right, and the deficiency question has to be dealt with in the agreement. Take advice before signing one. |
| Do nothing | Nobody, but it is common because the letters are hard to open. | The process continues without you and the costs added to the debt continue with it. If you do only one thing after reading this page, make it the free counseling call rather than a decision about selling. |
The parts nobody says to the servicer
“I have stopped opening the letters.”
Extremely common, and the letters are the one thing you need. Open them in one sitting with somebody else there if that helps, and put them in date order. You are looking for a sale date and for the name of the servicer’s loss mitigation department. You do not have to act on anything the same day.
“I am embarrassed to call my lender.”
Servicers have entire departments for this and the person answering has had the conversation many times today. If calling is still too much, a HUD approved counselor can speak to them with you or for you, which is one of the most useful things they do and it costs nothing.
“I think I have already left it too late.”
Usually not, and people are wrong about this in both directions. Options exist right up to a sale, and even after one there may be something depending on the state and the circumstances. Find out where you actually are before you conclude anything.
“Somebody offered to take over my payments.”
Be careful, and get that in front of an attorney before you sign. Arrangements where somebody takes over payments without taking over the loan can leave you liable for a debt on a house you no longer control. In Kansas, transfers of a defendant owner’s rights during a pending foreclosure are regulated by statute for reasons connected to exactly this.
“I do not want my neighbors to know.”
A reasonable thing to want. Publication requirements in Missouri are a matter of law rather than anybody’s choice, which is worth knowing so it does not arrive as a shock. Nothing about talking to a counselor or getting an offer is public.
“I just want to know if there is any way to keep it.”
Then ask that question first, and ask it of somebody who does not want to buy your house. That is the whole reason the counseling call is at the top of this page rather than the bottom.
How to sell a house to avoid foreclosure in Kansas City, in three steps
| Step | What happens | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Tell us the address and what the letters say | You do not need to understand them. Read us the dates and the name of the servicer. If you have not opened them, say so and we will tell you what to look for. | A conversation with nothing attached, and a plain answer about whether selling is even the right question for you. |
| 2. We look at the house and at the numbers | In person or remotely. We look at what is owed against what the property is worth, because if those two do not work then no offer we make helps you. | A written offer with the arithmetic shown, or a straight answer that a sale to us does not solve this. |
| 3. Check it against the free advice before you decide | Take the number to a HUD approved counselor and to an attorney if there is a sale date. If keeping the house is achievable, do that instead. | Something concrete to weigh, at no cost, and no pressure to use it. |
Find out where you stand before you decide anything
A written number if a sale makes sense, and a straight answer if it does not.
Is selling a house before a sheriff sale in KC better than letting it run?
Where there is equity, usually yes, because a sale you control tends to produce more than a sale you do not. Where there is no equity, selling may not be available to you at all without the lender’s agreement, and the comparison changes completely.
| What changes | If you sell before the sale date | If you let it run |
|---|---|---|
| Who controls the price | You do, within what the market and the debt allow. | The process does. A forced sale is not run to get you the best number. |
| Any equity above the debt | Comes to you after the debt and costs are paid. | Depends entirely on what the sale raises and what is owed. |
| The deficiency question | Still exists if the proceeds fall short. The deficiency section explains why it has to be dealt with separately. | Still exists, and you have had less influence over the number that creates it. |
| Costs added to the debt | Stop when the loan is satisfied. | Continue to accrue as the process runs. |
| Redemption | Not applicable, because there is no foreclosure sale to redeem from. | Depends on the state, and in Missouri on conditions you may have to satisfy before the sale. See what happens after a sale. |
| What you can still choose | Timing, buyer, and whether to accept at all. | Very little, once the process is under way. |
Here is the concession, and on this page it comes with a condition attached. If there is real equity in the house, the house is presentable, and the date on your letter is far enough away, then listing it with an agent will very probably net you more than we will, and more matters here because it is going against a debt. The case for selling before the sale date instead of listing is about condition, or a date too close for a listing, or a property nobody would lend against. And before either of those: if a counselor tells you the house is keepable, keep it. That beats both.
Where do you buy houses in the Kansas City metro?
Everywhere in the metro, and on both sides of the line. On the Missouri side that is Jackson, Clay, Platte and Cass counties. On the Kansas side, Johnson and Wyandotte. Which one you are in decides which of two different systems governs your house, so it is the first thing to establish.
Missouri: Kansas City, Independence, Blue Springs, Lee’s Summit, Raytown, Gladstone, Parkville, Raymore. Kansas: Overland Park, Lenexa, Shawnee, Olathe, Leavenworth, Kansas City, Kansas.
The publication requirement described in the Missouri section is heavier in counties containing a city of fifty thousand people or more, which on the Missouri side includes Jackson, Clay and Platte. If you are not sure which county your property is in, that is worth settling before anything else.
Not sure which state or county your property is in, or what stage you are at? Call 816-895-2999. We will help you work it out even if the answer is that you should not sell.
Call Now: 816-895-2999Local, Direct, Straight About The Limits
Why do Kansas City homeowners call us?
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A Business You Can Look Up
124 Missouri Ave, Ste 202, Kansas City, MO 64106, open Monday to Saturday, 8 AM to 9 PM CT. Check us out before you tell us anything about your situation.
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Here Since 2014
Rex Rodenbaugh set the business up in 2014 and has run it ever since. How long a company has existed is something you can confirm without asking it.
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We Send People To Free Help First
A HUD approved counselor is free and independent, and may tell you something that means you do not need us. We would rather you made that call before you take our number seriously.
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We Will Say When We Cannot Help
If what is owed is more than the house will produce, an offer from us does not solve your problem. We will tell you that instead of making one.
Frequently Asked Questions About Selling a House to Avoid Foreclosure in Kansas City
What is the first thing I should do if I am behind on my mortgage?
Speak to a HUD approved housing counselor. It is free, they are independent of both lenders and buyers, and they deal with servicers all the time. Start with HUD’s foreclosure avoidance material or use the HUD approved counseling agency locator linked in the takeaways card at the top of this page. Do that before you contact anybody who wants to buy the house, this business included.
Is foreclosure the same in Missouri and Kansas?
No, and this is the thing most pages about Kansas City get wrong. Missouri usually forecloses by trustee’s sale under a deed of trust, with no court involved. Kansas foreclosure runs through the district court as litigation. The notice you receive, who decides what, and what happens after a sale are all different. Advice written for one state is not advice for the other, even though both are in this metro.
Can a buyer stop my foreclosure?
No. Nobody outside your lender and, in Kansas, the court can stop, pause or reverse a foreclosure. What a sale can do is pay off the debt, and where the proceeds cover what is owed plus costs, the foreclosure ends because the loan has been satisfied. That is a consequence of the money arriving, not a service anyone performs on the legal process. Be careful with any company that says otherwise.
Do I get a redemption period in Missouri?
Only in narrow circumstances. RSMo 443.410 provides one year from the date of sale, but only where the property is bought in at that sale by the holder of the debt or by someone for that holder, and only if the person entitled to redeem gave written notice at the sale or within ten days before the advertised sale date. A third party buying for themselves means no redemption. Because the notice condition falls before or at the sale, this is a question to raise with an attorney early rather than after.
I am in Kansas and in foreclosure. What has to happen if I sell my rights?
Kansas regulates it. Under K.S.A. 58-2342, a transfer of a defendant owner’s rights in a residence subject to a pending foreclosure must be in writing with all terms set out in detail, and the buyer must give you copies of both the agreement and a prescribed disclosure statement. That disclosure has to tell you that you may still owe money if the sale falls short and that a foreclosure is likely to be reported to credit agencies. There is a rescission right by certified mail within five business days, and non compliance makes the transfer voidable at your election.
Will selling protect my credit?
This page will not tell you what will happen to your credit file, and treat carefully any page that does. What is reported depends on your servicer and on what is actually reported. Note that the disclosure Kansas requires a buyer to give an owner in this position says a foreclosure is likely to be reported and might injure a credit rating. A HUD approved counselor can talk the question through with you properly.
If the house sells for less than I owe, is the rest written off?
Not automatically. The shortfall is called a deficiency and whether a lender pursues it depends on the loan documents, the state and the lender’s own decision. If you are negotiating a short sale, whether the lender releases you from the shortfall is a separate question from whether they approve the sale, and you should ask it separately and in writing.
Why would I sell to a cash buyer instead of listing?
Often you should not. Where there is real equity, the house shows reasonably and there is time before any sale date, listing usually produces more, and more matters here because it is going against a debt. A direct sale earns its place when the condition, the timing or the state of the property rules a listing out. And where the debt exceeds what the property is worth, neither route works without your lender, so the question becomes what they will agree to.
Have another question? Call 816-895-2999
Find out where you stand, even if you never call us back
You do not need to have opened the letters. You do not need to know what stage you are at, what is owed, whether there is a sale date, or whether selling is even possible. You do not need the house tidy and you do not need to have decided anything.
Nothing is owed for asking. You get a written number if a sale would help, a straight answer if it would not, and a push towards free counseling either way. If the best thing for you is to keep the house, we would genuinely rather you did that.