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Death on Deployment — 180 Days Before a Foreclosure May Start

A mortgagee may not begin a foreclosure against the surviving spouse or the estate of a borrower who dies while deployed overseas on active duty, for 180 days after the death. It reaches mortgages entered into on or after 1 August 2009.

Verified August 23, 2026

What this benefit is

A mortgagee may not begin a foreclosure against the surviving spouse or the estate of a borrower who dies while deployed overseas on active duty, for 180 days after the death. It reaches mortgages entered into on or after 1 August 2009.

What it's worth: 180 days in which no foreclosure may be started

  • The department states the law prohibits a mortgagee from initiating a foreclosure for 180 days after the death.
  • The death must occur while the borrower is deployed overseas on active-duty military service.
  • It applies to mortgages entered into on or after 1 August 2009, so an older mortgage is outside it as published.
  • The value is the time itself. No dollar figure is claimed, because none is published.

Who is entitled to it

  • The bar protects the surviving spouse, and the estate, of the borrower who died.
  • Your home is in Alabama.

Not sure whether that describes you?

Answer a few questions about this benefit specifically — we only ask what this one actually depends on, and we stop as soon as we know.

How to claim it

Deadline: 180 days running from the date of death
  1. 1Write to the servicer immediately and say the borrower died while deployed overseas on active duty. Nothing here happens automatically; the servicer has to be told.
  2. 2Check the date on the mortgage first. The protection as published reaches mortgages entered into on or after 1 August 2009.
  3. 3Keep the casualty notification and the deployment orders together with the mortgage papers — those two documents are what establish the death occurred on deployment.
  4. 4Diary day 180. The bar is a pause, not a cancellation, and the servicer may act once it lapses. Use the time to arrange assumption, refinancing or sale.
  5. 5If a foreclosure is started anyway, the department describes civil penalties against a violator, paid into the Military Family Relief Fund. That is a lever a lawyer can use.
  6. 6Ask a county veterans service officer to point you to legal help before the 180 days run out, not after.
Form
No application — the bar operates by law
File with
Raise it with the mortgage servicer, and with a lawyer if the servicer proceeds anyway
Documents you will need
dd214
No renewal
Once granted it does not need renewing.
CorrectionThe department files this rule under the heading "Military Family Relief Fund", which is where the penalty money goes. The rule itself is a foreclosure bar, and anyone scanning the headings for help with a mortgage would scroll straight past it.
Known gapNothing read this session says whether the 180 days also stops interest, late fees or an acceleration already declared, nor whether a deployment that was not overseas counts. Ask a lawyer before assuming either way.

Sources

Why only one source type: The department compiles and publishes the rule with its Code citation. The Code section itself was not opened this session, so the record rests on the department’s own statement of it.

This finder provides an informational match, not a government eligibility determination. The responsible agency decides your application.