A mortgage default becomes a foreclosure through a sequence of steps, each with a deadline, and almost every one of them is a point at which the outcome can still change. This article maps that sequence from the first missed payment through sale, redemption, and deficiency, and explains the two structurally different systems — judicial foreclosure through a lawsuit and nonjudicial foreclosure under a power of sale — that determine how much time a homeowner has and what defenses are available. It covers the servicer regulations that have quietly become homeowners' most useful tool, including the loss-mitigation timelines and the dual-tracking prohibition of Regulation X, and explains why servicer error rather than borrower hardship is the proximate cause of a substantial share of foreclosures. The second half covers the loss-mitigation options in order of desirability, the bankruptcy cure that stops a sale and spreads arrears over five years, the standing and chain-of-title defenses that survived the securitization era, and the surplus-proceeds rule the Supreme Court established in Tyler v. Hennepin County. It closes with the traps that cost homeowners equity they did not know they had.