Notice of Trustee Sale: Reading the Date

A notice of trustee sale tells you the date, time and place a trustee plans to auction a house under a deed of trust, the unpaid balance and estimated costs, and how to reach the trustee. In California, Civil Code section 2924f requires it to be posted on the property and in a public place, published once a week for three consecutive calendar weeks, and recorded, all at least 20 days before the sale. The date printed on it is a scheduled date, not a final one: it can be postponed, and several of your rights are counted backward from it. Read it with your lender and a HUD-approved housing counselor before you decide anything.

This article is part of our series on behind on payments, liens and tax defaults. For every option in order, with the ones that keep the house first, start with behind on payments in California: your options, the timeline and the two numbers. Foreclosure questions are legal questions; this page describes the notice, and an attorney or counselor applies it to your loan.

Where the notice of sale comes in

A notice of trustee sale is the second recorded notice in a California nonjudicial foreclosure. The first is the notice of default, explained in what a notice of default means and what it does not. Civil Code section 2924 requires at least three months between recording the notice of default and giving notice of sale. So if you are holding a notice of sale, you are in the last stretch of what people call pre-foreclosure, and the calendar now matters as much as the amount.

Under Civil Code section 2923.3, for a home of one to four units, the lender, the trustee or an authorized agent must also send you a copy of the recorded notice of sale with a separate summary attached in English and in the other languages that law covers. If your copy came with a summary page, that is why.

Reading the notice, line by line

Lay your notice next to this table. Section 2924f lists what the notice must contain. Every figure here is a dash, because yours comes from your own notice.

What to findWhat it tells youWhat to do with it

Date, time and place of sale

When and where the auction is scheduled. Section 2924g says sales are held in the county where the property sits, at auction, between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. on a business day

Write the date down and count backward from it (next section): -

Trustee's name, address and phone

Who conducts the sale. The trustee is not your lender

Use it to check for postponements

Street address and assessor's parcel number

Which property is being sold

Confirm it is yours and matches the deed of trust

Unpaid balance and estimated costs

The total stated as of the first publication of the notice

Ask the lender for a current written figure; this one will have grown: -

Notice to property owner

A phone number, a website and a file number for postponement information

Keep the file number; it is how you look the sale up

Notice to tenant

Tenants' rights to buy after the auction under section 2924m

If the house is rented, your tenant receives this too

Notice to potential bidders

A warning to bidders about liens and risk

Written for bidders, not for you

Is the date on the notice the real date?

Often it moves. Section 2924g allows postponements for up to a total of 365 days from the date in the notice of sale: by court order, by operation of law (a bankruptcy stay, for example), by agreement between you and the lender, or at the trustee's discretion. Each postponement is announced publicly at the time and place set for the sale. If the total runs past 365 days, a new notice of sale is required.

The notice itself tells you how to keep up. The "notice to property owner" that section 2924f requires says the date "may be postponed one or more times," gives the trustee's phone number and website, and tells you to use the case file number. It also warns that very short postponements, or ones made close to the sale, may not show up right away, and that the best way to verify is to attend the scheduled sale. Do not rely on a phone call from anyone other than the trustee or your servicer for the current date.

Counting backward from the date

Several deadlines are measured from the scheduled sale date, not from the day you received the notice. Fill this in from your own notice.

Point on the calendarWhat happens thereRuleYour date

Before the first publication

A written request for a payoff demand statement must be answered under the statute only if the lender receives it before the notice of sale is first published

Civil Code 2943(c)

-

20 days before the sale

The latest the notice can be posted, first published and recorded

Civil Code 2924f

-

More than 37 days before the sale

If you submit a complete loss mitigation application after foreclosure has started but more than 37 days before the sale, the servicer generally may not conduct the sale while it is evaluated, with limited exceptions

12 CFR 1024.41(g)

-

5 business days before the sale

Your right to reinstate by catching up normally ends; it revives if the sale is postponed more than five business days

Civil Code 2924c

-

5 business days before the sale

The deadline to deliver a listing agreement or purchase agreement to the trustee under the newer postponement rules (below)

Civil Code 2924f(e)

-

The sale date

The auction, unless postponed. For a home you live in, a contract you signed with an equity purchaser can be cancelled until 8 a.m. that day, or earlier if five business days pass first

Civil Code 2924g, 1695.4

-

The 37-day line is the "37 day foreclosure rule" people search for. It is a federal mortgage servicing rule, and what counts as complete, and which exceptions apply, are questions for your servicer and a housing counselor.

Two newer rules that run off the sale date

For homes of one to four units, section 2924f now has two provisions many older guides do not mention. These provisions took effect January 1, 2025, and by the section's own terms it stays in effect until January 1, 2031.

• A listing or a purchase agreement can add time, once. If the trustee receives from you, at least five business days before the scheduled sale and by certified mail or a tracked overnight courier, a listing agreement with a California licensed real estate broker placed on a publicly available marketing platform, the sale cannot be held until an additional 45 days after the scheduled date, and your reinstatement right is recalculated from the new date. If, after that, you deliver a bona fide, fully executed purchase agreement at a price at least equal to the unpaid balance of all obligations of record, with the buyer's name, price, closing date and the escrow agent's acceptance, the sale must be postponed to at least 45 days after the trustee receives it. Each can be used only once.
• A floor at the first auction. For a first deed of trust, the lender must give the trustee a fair market value for the property at least 10 days before the first scheduled sale, and the trustee may not sell at that first sale below a minimum tied to that value. If it does not sell, the sale is postponed and the property can then go to the highest bidder.

Neither rule ends a foreclosure, and the details (who qualifies, what counts as delivery, what the agreement must say) decide whether they apply. Take your notice to an attorney before relying on either one.

Who to call first

1. Your servicer. The California courts' self-help guide says the servicer must give you a single point of contact. Ask for a written reinstatement figure and a payoff statement, and ask what loss mitigation options exist.
2. A HUD-approved housing counselor. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau says HUD-approved counseling agencies provide foreclosure prevention counseling at no cost to you, and it lists the HOPE Hotline at (888) 995-4673. See HUD-approved housing counselors: what they do.
3. An attorney, if anything on the notice looks wrong or you want to rely on a postponement rule.

Be careful with anyone who contacts you because the notice is public and asks for money up front to postpone the sale. Civil Code section 2945.1 regulates people who, for pay, say they will halt or postpone a sale or save the house.

Where a sale fits against the date

A sale is one option among several, and only if it leaves you something. We put two numbers on the same house, an as-is cash offer and an open-market read, each with the comps, the deductions and the payoff and reinstatement figures you request from your lender, mapped against the date on your notice. The open-market read is a preliminary estimate, not an appraisal; it is neither an automated estimate nor a certified appraisal. When listing wins: if there is enough time before the date (or a postponement in writing) for a financed buyer to close, and the house shows well, the open market will usually net more, and the written recommendation says so. You are then introduced to a designated local expert, an independently licensed agent. Mr. Cali Offers never lists a house. Read selling before a trustee sale: when it can and cannot work for the conditions a sale has to meet.

What this looks like in practice

These are the kinds of files that come in, described without names or figures: an Ontario owner with a sale date set and a house that would sell well listed, who first needed to know whether the date had already been postponed; and a Pomona owner whose notice arrived with a translated summary page, who wanted the dates read in plain terms before calling the servicer.

If a sale is one of the options you want measured, see how we map both numbers against your trustee sale date, or call (909) 498-3977. There is no cost and no obligation to get the two numbers and the written report.

Sources

• California Civil Code section 2924f (notice of sale: posting, publication, recording, contents, listing and purchase agreements, first-sale minimum): leginfo.legislature.ca.gov, accessed November 6, 2026
• California Civil Code section 2924g (time and place of sale, postponements): leginfo.legislature.ca.gov, accessed November 6, 2026
• California Civil Code section 2924 (notice of default and the three-month period): leginfo.legislature.ca.gov, accessed November 6, 2026
• California Civil Code section 2924c (reinstatement): leginfo.legislature.ca.gov, accessed November 6, 2026
• California Civil Code section 2923.3 (translated summaries of the notices): leginfo.legislature.ca.gov, accessed November 6, 2026
• California Civil Code section 2924m (tenant and eligible bidder purchase rights): leginfo.legislature.ca.gov, accessed November 6, 2026
• California Civil Code section 2943 (beneficiary and payoff demand statements): leginfo.legislature.ca.gov, accessed November 6, 2026
• California Civil Code section 1695.4 (equity seller's right to cancel): leginfo.legislature.ca.gov, accessed November 6, 2026
• California Civil Code section 2945.1 (foreclosure consultants): leginfo.legislature.ca.gov, accessed November 6, 2026
• Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Regulation X, 12 CFR 1024.41 (loss mitigation procedures): consumerfinance.gov, accessed November 6, 2026
• Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, How do I find a HUD-approved housing counselor?: consumerfinance.gov, accessed November 6, 2026
• Judicial Branch of California, Your rights in a nonjudicial foreclosure: selfhelp.courts.ca.gov, accessed November 6, 2026

Mr. Cali Offers is not a law firm, a lender or a housing counseling agency, and does not offer foreclosure consulting. Cash offers come from independent buyers and investors who buy for their own account and may resell for profit; a cash offer is generally below what the open market would bring. Any value shown is a preliminary estimate, not an appraisal. Nothing here is legal, tax or financial advice.