The Connecticut foreclosure process, step by step

A mortgage servicer typically sends a demand letter first, giving 30 or 60 days to cure or pay off the loan [source]. If that window passes, the loan accelerates and the servicer can file suit. Nothing about this stage touches the court, so it never appears in a court-record dataset.

The case opens when the plaintiff files a Summons and Complaint and records a notice of lis pendens in the land records of the town where the property sits. CGS §52-325 requires that notice to name the parties, the return date, and the property, and the action is "deemed to be pending" from the moment it's recorded [source]. Most lis pendens filers must serve a copy on the property owner within 30 days or it doesn't count as valid notice — mortgage foreclosure is the statute's specific exception, so a foreclosure lis pendens is valid the moment it's recorded [source]. See the lis pendens guide for what that filing does and doesn't tell you.

This is also the earliest point a specific address is tied to a pending case — which is what our own case-record research tracks from, filing forward, not from a later sale date.

An owner-occupant of a 1–4 family primary residence can enter the Foreclosure Mediation Program by filing a Foreclosure Mediation Certificate (JD-CV-108) and an Appearance within 15 days of the Return Date [source]. Once in, the plaintiff is barred from most motions for up to 8 months from the Return Date — CGS §49-31l(f) permits only jurisdictional motions and mediation-related filings during that window [source]. Mediation itself has a shorter cap: it ends at the third session or 7 months from the Return Date, whichever comes first [source]. If mediation ends early, no judgment can enter until 15 more days pass [source]. A settled case must be withdrawn within 120 days or the court dismisses it on its own.

This is why a case can show no docket activity for months without being stalled — it's inside one of these statutory windows.

Connecticut law lets a foreclosure end "by a decree of sale instead of a strict foreclosure," at the court's discretion, on written motion [source]. Strict foreclosure — title transfers with no auction — is the plaintiff's default ask. A sale requires someone to file for one and the court to find equity above the debt and sale costs. See strict foreclosure vs. foreclosure by sale for how that decision gets made.

A sale judgment sets a 45-day bar date before which the committee can't bill expenses; the Judicial Branch's ad posting starts 10 days after that; a sign goes up on the property 20–30 days before the sale [source]. Sales typically land 60–90 days after judgment [source]. After the auction, the court has to approve the sale, the buyer closes 21–30 days after approval, and the committee then has 14 days from closing to file its return of sale with the court [source] — a committee filing deadline, not a buyer-facing one. See how a committee sale actually runs for the deposit and closing mechanics.

A strict foreclosure instead sets a Law Day — as soon as 21 days after judgment, usually 45–90 — the deadline to pay the debt in full before title passes automatically the next day [source].

A case can carry a docket number, a filed complaint, and a recorded lis pendens for over a year before it ever reaches that last column.

Of the 1,117 cases in our records with a recorded judgment of foreclosure by sale, filing to judgment averaged 274 days and judgment to auction averaged another 123 — 442 days, about 14½ months, filing to auction. The public sale list, by contrast, posts its notice a median of 35 days before the sale date (271 current postings, middle half 33–44 days). The docket covers the year-plus before that; the sale list covers the last five weeks.