Selling a house in foreclosure in McHenry County.

Illinois forecloses mortgages through the courts, and for a McHenry County property that means the 22nd Judicial Circuit. The Circuit Clerk keeps the case file. The Clerk's office is at 2200 N. Seminary Avenue (Route 47), Woodstock, IL 60098, Rooms 136 and 353, open Monday through Friday, 8:00 am to 4:30 pm, at 815-334-4190.

The Clerk's site has a Mortgage Foreclosure page that links the court forms and instructions the Illinois Supreme Court's Commission on Access to Justice has approved for foreclosure cases. If you've been served and don't have a lawyer yet, that page is the place to start.

The same page explains that the notice of a default and a judgment of foreclosure that Supreme Court Rule 113(d) requires is mailed by the Clerk, in an envelope with the Clerk's return address. If one arrives, it's a real court notice. Read it the day it comes and take it to a lawyer or a housing counselor.

These details are from the offices' websites as we read them on October 3, 2026. Confirm rooms, hours, and sale days with the office before you rely on them.

A judicial sale comes after a judgment of foreclosure and after the reinstatement and redemption periods in the statute have run. In McHenry County, the Sheriff's office lists foreclosure sales as held on Thursdays at 10:00 a.m. in Civil Process, Room 262, and gives 815-334-4720 as the number. Its foreclosure page has a downloadable list of current sales.

If your address is on that list, call the number above to confirm the date. What rights you still have by then depends on the dates in your own case file, and we can't read those for you. Our page on how to sell a house in foreclosure in Illinois lays out what the statute says about reinstatement, redemption, and the sale, so you can go through your papers with a lawyer.

A foreclosure sale sometimes brings more than the lender was owed. Illinois law says that surplus is held until a party gets a court order for it. The McHenry County Circuit Clerk's page says the Clerk may be holding a surplus to which a former owner "may be entitled," and it publishes a list of foreclosure cases with surplus funds on hand.

The Clerk's page describes how to claim it: file a motion, mail or serve notice of the motion and a copy to all the parties in the case, schedule a court date, and appear before the judge to ask for an order releasing the funds. It gives 815-334-4310 as the number to call for an available court date.

You don't need to pay anyone a share to find out whether there's a surplus in your case. The list is public, and the Self-Represented Help Center can point you to the forms.

The Homeowner Notice that Illinois requires with a foreclosure summons says to get advice from a lawyer or a certified housing counselor, and to be careful with people who contact you offering help. We're a buyer, so that warning covers us too.

In the courthouse, the 22nd Judicial Circuit runs a Self-Represented Help Center with Prairie State Legal Aid. The court's page lists it in Room 346, at 815-334-0317, open 8:00 am to 4:30 pm and closed from 1 to 2. Its staff "cannot provide legal advice," but they can explain the process and get you to the right forms. HUD-approved housing counseling agencies are listed in the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's counselor search.

Selling is one option among several, and we can't tell you whether it's yours. We don't stop or delay a foreclosure, negotiate with your lender, or file anything in your case. What we do is look at the house and, if we can, put a cash offer in writing that you can take to your lawyer.

We buy houses across McHenry County as they stand. See our McHenry County page or the page for a house in the city of McHenry. Our office is in Elgin, and we come to the house. A cash offer is usually below what a repaired house would list for; if you have equity and time left in your case, ask your lawyer whether listing would leave you with more.