Learning how to foreclose on a trust deed in Utah comes down to following one statutory sequence exactly: appoint a trustee who is legally allowed to sell, record a notice of default in every county where the property sits, let three full months pass, then publish, post, and mail the notice of sale before auctioning the property at a courthouse. Utah Code Title 57, Chapter 1 governs each step.

Last updated: September 2026

Key Takeaways

What a Utah trust deed is, and why the power of sale matters

A trust deed is a three-party security instrument. The borrower, called the trustor, conveys title to the property to a trustee, who holds it in trust to secure the trustor’s obligation to a lender, called the beneficiary. Those terms are defined in Utah Code Section 57-1-19, and Section 57-1-20 confirms that any interest the trustor later acquires in the property also flows to the trustee as security.

The reason Utah lenders use a trust deed instead of a mortgage sits in Section 57-1-23. A qualified trustee holds a power of sale, meaning the trustee can sell the property at public auction after a breach without filing a lawsuit, without a judge, and without a jury. The statute goes further than most people expect: the power of sale exists even if the trust deed says nothing about it. Everything that follows about how to foreclose on a trust deed in Utah flows from that one grant of authority. The beneficiary may still choose to foreclose judicially, in the manner provided for mortgages, but that choice carries consequences discussed later in this article.

Every step below is mandatory. Utah’s nonjudicial process is not a general framework that a lender can adapt to circumstances. It is a checklist, and a trustee who skips an item hands the trustor an argument that the sale should be unwound. Lenders who want more background on secured lending generally should also review the site’s overview of Utah real estate law.

The trustee’s deed “shall operate to convey to the purchaser, without right of redemption, the trustee’s title and all right, title, interest, and claim of the trustor.”

Utah Code Section 57-1-28(3)

How to foreclose on a trust deed in Utah: the nine steps at a glance

Here is the full sequence, with the statute that controls each step and the timing it imposes. Read this table first, then work through the detailed sections that follow.

Two things about this table deserve emphasis. First, the three-month period in step 6 is a floor, not an estimate. It runs from the date the notice of default is recorded, and nothing in Chapter 1 lets a beneficiary shorten it. Second, the publication requirement in step 7 cannot begin until the three months have elapsed, because Section 57-1-24(3) says notice of sale is given “after the lapse of at least three months.” Lenders who try to overlap those periods to save a few weeks create a defect that shows up later in a title objection.

Step 1: Confirm the default and read your own loan file

Before a single document goes to the recorder, the beneficiary needs to answer four questions from its own file.

Is there an actual breach? The power of sale arises “after a breach of an obligation for which the trust property is conveyed as security.” That is usually nonpayment, but trust deeds routinely secure other promises: paying property taxes, maintaining insurance, refraining from further encumbrance, and not transferring the property without consent. A due-on-sale breach is as foreclosable as a missed payment if the trust deed says so. Read the instrument rather than assuming.

Was the debt properly accelerated? Section 57-1-31 presupposes that the principal “has become due or been declared due.” Most notes require a written notice of acceleration, sometimes with a contractual cure period that has nothing to do with the statutory three months. Blowing a contractual notice provision is the most common self-inflicted wound in Utah foreclosures, and it is a plain breach of contract problem rather than a statutory one.

Who is the current beneficiary? If the note has changed hands, the assignment chain matters. Section 57-1-22.5 lets a beneficiary record a notice of assignment of beneficial interest, which is prima facie evidence of the assignment. Recording it before the notice of default removes an easy argument that the party directing the foreclosure had no authority to do so.

Is the remedy still alive? Section 57-1-34 requires the holder to either sue to foreclose or record a notice of default within the limitations period for an action on the underlying obligation. For a written note, that period is six years under Section 78B-2-309(1)(b). For a credit agreement, the six years runs from the later of the day the debt arose, the day the debtor acknowledged it in writing, or the day a payment was made. An old, quiet default can outlive the remedy while the lien itself still sits on record.

Step 2: Appoint a trustee who is legally allowed to sell

Of all the questions about how to foreclose on a trust deed in Utah, this is the one that private lenders, seller financers, and out-of-state institutions most often get wrong. Section 57-1-21(1)(a) lists six categories of person who may serve as trustee of a Utah trust deed, but Subsection (3) narrows the field dramatically: the power of sale may be exercised only by a trustee qualified under Subsection (1)(a)(i) or (1)(a)(iv). Those two categories are:

• An individual who is an active member of the Utah State Bar, or an entity organized to provide licensed professional legal services that employs an active Utah Bar member, so long as it can do business in Utah and maintains an in-state office where the trustor can request reinstatement figures, deliver communications to the lender, deliver reinstatement or payoff funds, and where bidders can deliver funds at the sale.
• A title insurance company or agency holding a certificate of authority or license under Title 31A, actually doing business in Utah, and maintaining a bona fide office in the state.

A “bona fide office” is defined in Subsection (1)(b) as a physical Utah office that is open to the public, staffed during regular business hours on regular business days, and where a trustor can appear in person to ask about the trust deed or hand over funds. A mail drop does not qualify. Where a law entity serves as trustee, Subsection (1)(e) allows only a currently licensed member attorney of that entity to sign documents in the trustee capacity.

Two additional rules trip up lenders. Subsection (2) says the trustee may not be the beneficiary unless the beneficiary is itself a depository institution, a trust company, a federal agency, or a Farm Credit entity. A private lender, a family LLC, or a real estate investor therefore can never serve as its own trustee. And Subsection (4) makes the consequence clear: a trust deed with an unqualified trustee still creates a valid lien, but the power of sale can be exercised only after the beneficiary appoints a qualified successor trustee under Section 57-1-22.

The penalty for getting this wrong is statutory. Section 57-1-23.5 makes an unauthorized person who conducts a sale liable to the trustor for actual damages or $2,000, whichever is greater, plus the trustor’s costs and attorney fees.

Recording the substitution of trustee

Section 57-1-22 sets the mechanics. The beneficiary may appoint a successor trustee at any time by recording an appointment or substitution of trustee in each county where the property or part of it lies. The instrument has to identify the original parties to the trust deed, the recording date, the book and page or entry number, the legal description, and the new trustee’s name and address. Subsection (2)(d) requires it to be executed and acknowledged by all of the beneficiaries or their successors in interest, which matters when a note is held by several investors or by co-trustees of a family trust.

Timing is fixed by Subsection (3)(a): if the substitution has not already been recorded, the successor trustee must record it at the time the notice of default is recorded. A copy also goes to everyone entitled to a copy of the notice of default. The beneficiary can, by express language in the substitution, ratify actions the new trustee took before recording, which is a useful cleanup tool but a poor plan.

What the trustee may not delegate

Section 57-1-21.5 lists duties the trustee must perform personally: preparing and executing the notice of default, the cancellation of that notice, the notice of sale, and the trustee’s deed; giving foreclosure notice by publication, posting, and certified or registered mail; receiving and responding to reinstatement or payoff requests; and handling reinstatement or payoff funds. The trustee may use supervised clerical staff, may hire out publication, posting, marketing, and advertising, and the beneficiary or its servicer may directly handle reinstatement and payoff communications and funds.

The same section bars referral fees, including commissions and fees for referring title work, posting, or publishing, and it prohibits charging a reinstating trustor or a beneficiary acquiring through foreclosure more than actual costs incurred. A violation is a class B misdemeanor, plus liability to the trustor for actual damages or $1,000, whichever is greater, with fees to the prevailing party.

Step 3: Decide whether Section 57-1-24.3 applies to your loan

Before recording anything, work out whether the pre-default notice regime applies. Section 57-1-24.3 requires a beneficiary or servicer, before recording a notice of default, to designate a single point of contact and to send the trustor a written notice stating the nature of the default, an itemized total cure amount, and a date at least 30 days out by which the trustor must cure to avoid the filing. The notice must disclose the single point of contact’s name, phone number, email, and mailing address, and direct the trustor there for any foreclosure relief the lender offers.

The definitions decide who is captured. “Beneficiary” under this section means a financial institution that is the record owner of the beneficial interest, and “financial institution” means a state or federally chartered bank, savings and loan association, savings bank, industrial bank, or credit union, or another entity under the jurisdiction of the commissioner of financial institutions. “Loan” means an obligation incurred for personal, family, or household purposes, evidenced by a promissory note or other credit agreement, secured by a trust deed on owner-occupied residential property, which means property the owner occupies as a primary residence.

All of those elements must line up. A hard money loan to an investor, a seller-financed purchase of a rental, a commercial loan from a private fund, and a loan secured by a vacant lot all fall outside the section. For those loans there is no statutory single point of contact and no statutory 30-day pre-default cure notice, though the trust deed’s own notice provisions still control. Lenders operating outside institutional lending should read the companion article on Utah trust deed foreclosure for private lenders, which covers that scenario in depth.

Where the section does apply, it also controls sequencing after the notice of default. A trustor may apply for foreclosure relief with the single point of contact before the three-month period expires, and no notice of sale may be given until the single point of contact delivers a written decision on that application. The lender may proceed if, in its sole discretion, it determines the trustor does not qualify or elects not to enter a written relief agreement. It may also postpone a sale for further negotiations without recording a new notice of default.

Step 4: Record the notice of default in each county

The notice of default is the document that starts everything. Under Section 57-1-24(1), the trustee records it in the office of the recorder of each county where the trust property or any part of it is situated. The statute prescribes its contents:

• The name of the trustor named in the trust deed.
• The book and page, or the recorder’s entry number, where the trust deed is recorded.
• A legal description of the trust property.
• A statement that a breach of an obligation secured by the property has occurred, setting forth the nature of that breach.
• The trustee’s election to sell or cause the property to be sold to satisfy the obligation.

Two practical points. If a ranch, a subdivision, or a commercial parcel straddles a county line, the notice must be recorded in both counties, and the three-month period should be measured from the later recording to be safe. And the description of the breach should be specific enough that the trustor can actually cure it. A notice that says only “borrower is in default” invites a dispute about whether the reinstatement amount was ever properly disclosed.

Step 5: Mail the notice of default within 10 days

Section 57-1-26 controls who gets notice, and it operates on a request system. Any person who wants copies of the notice of default and notice of sale may record an acknowledged request for notice, after the trust deed is recorded and before a notice of default is recorded, in the county where the property sits. That request states the requesting party’s name and address and identifies the trust deed. The recorder indexes it in the mortgagor’s index, the mortgagee’s index, and the abstract record. Absent such a request, and subject to one important exception, the trustee is not required to send anyone notice.

The exception is Subsection (3), and it captures nearly every modern trust deed. If the trust deed itself contains a request that copies of the notices be mailed to a party to the trust deed at the address stated in the instrument, that counts as a recorded request. When the trustee mails under that subsection, it must also include current information: the trustee’s name, mailing address, the address of its bona fide Utah office, the hours during which it can be contacted (which must include regular business hours on a regular business day), and a telephone number.

The deadlines are firm. Under Subsection (2)(a), not later than 10 days after the notice of default is recorded, the trustee or beneficiary mails a signed copy, by certified or registered mail with return receipt requested and postage prepaid, showing the recording date, to each person whose name and address appear in a request recorded before the notice of default. Under Subsection (2)(b), at least 20 days before the sale date, the trustee mails a signed copy of the notice of time and place of sale the same way. Subsection (4) covers the gap case: if no trustor address appears in the trust deed and no request was recorded, a copy of the notice of default must be mailed to the property address or posted on the property within 15 days of recording.

Keep the green cards and the certified mail receipts. Those become the evidentiary backbone if the sale is ever challenged, and they support the recitals of compliance that go into the trustee’s deed later.

Step 6: Run the three-month reinstatement period correctly

Anyone working out how to foreclose on a trust deed in Utah should treat the three-month period as active time rather than dead time. It is when the statutory cure right lives, and mishandling it is one of the few ways a lender can accidentally extend its own timeline.

Who may cure

Section 57-1-31(1)(a) is broad. Within three months of recording the notice of default, the default may be cured by the trustor, the trustor’s successor in interest in the property or any part of it, any other person holding a subordinate lien or encumbrance of record, or any beneficiary under a subordinate trust deed. That means a junior lender watching its collateral evaporate can protect itself by curing the senior default, a dynamic that also appears when an association enforces its own assessment lien. The interaction between competing liens is covered in the article on whether an HOA lien takes priority over a mortgage in Utah.

The cure amount is the entire amount then due under the trust deed, including costs and expenses actually incurred in enforcement and trustee and attorney fees actually incurred, but excluding the accelerated principal that would not yet be due had no default occurred. Once paid, the obligation and trust deed are reinstated as if no acceleration had happened.

The trustee’s cancellation duty

If the default is cured and a reasonable cancellation fee, including recording costs, is paid, the trustee must execute, acknowledge, and deliver a cancellation of the recorded notice of default, and must mail a copy of the recorded cancellation by certified or registered mail within 20 days to everyone entitled to receive the notices under Section 57-1-26(3). A trustee who refuses to execute and record the cancellation within 30 days is liable to the person who cured for all actual damages resulting from the refusal. A reconveyance or the execution of a trustee’s deed also operates as a cancellation.

The tolling trap in Section 57-1-31.5

Section 57-1-31.5 is the provision most likely to move a sale date, and it cuts both ways. An interested party may request a reinstatement statement or a payoff statement in writing. A reinstatement request is timely only if the trustee receives it at least 10 business days before the three-month period ends. A payoff request is timely only if received at least 10 business days before the sale. Requests go to the address for trustee notices in the trust deed or an alternate address the trustee approves, and delivery through certified mail with return receipt or a tracked courier service establishes receipt, including where delivery is refused.

Now the consequences. If the trustee provides a requested reinstatement statement later than five business days after receiving the request, the time to reinstate is tolled from the request date to the date the statement is provided. If, after scheduling a sale, the trustee fails to provide a requested payoff statement within five business days, the trustee must either cancel the sale or postpone it to a date at least 10 business days after the statement is provided. A slow response, in other words, buys the borrower time that no court has to grant.

Each statement must include a detailed listing of attorney fees, trustee fees, and costs such as title, publication, and posting fees that the trustor would have to pay, plus a disclosure of any relationship the trustee has with third parties providing foreclosure-related services and whether that relationship arises from an ownership interest or a contract.

Step 7: Publish, post, and mail the notice of trustee’s sale

Once three months have passed, Section 57-1-25 takes over. This is the most procedurally exacting part of how to foreclose on a trust deed in Utah, because three separate notice channels have to line up on one calendar. The trustee gives written notice of the time and place of sale, particularly describing the property, through three separate channels.

Publication

The notice must be published at least three times, at least once a week for three consecutive weeks, with the last publication at least 10 days but not more than 30 days before the scheduled sale date, in a newspaper of general circulation in each county where the property or part of it sits. Separately, it must appear for 30 days before the sale on the statewide public legal notice website described in Section 45-1-101, which is the site established by Utah’s newspapers and available to the public free of charge.

Those two windows are easy to misalign. The 30-day website posting typically has to start before the final newspaper run, so build the calendar backward from the sale date rather than forward from the end of the three-month period.

Posting

At least 20 days before the sale, the notice must be posted in a conspicuous place on the property and at the office of the county recorder of each county where the property or part of it is located.

Residential rental property adds a tenant notice

If the stated purpose of the secured obligation was to finance residential rental property, Subsection (1)(c) adds a tenant notice. It goes on the primary door of each dwelling unit if the property has fewer than nine units, or in at least three conspicuous places on the property in addition to the ordinary posting if it has nine or more, or it may be mailed to the occupant of each unit. The statement must appear in at least 14-point font and follow the form in Subsection (3)(b), which tells tenants they may be entitled under federal law to stay until their agreement expires or 90 days after service of a notice to vacate, whichever is later, and that they must keep paying rent.

Subsection (4) contains a rule worth knowing on both sides of the transaction: failure to give that tenant notice, or a defect in it, may not be the basis for challenging or invalidating the sale. The tenant has federal rights, but the sale itself stands. Landlord obligations during this period are a separate topic, addressed in the material on commercial lease issues.

Form and content of the notice

Subsection (3)(a) supplies a statutory form. The notice identifies the property, the sale location, the date and time, the original trustors, the beneficiary in whose favor the trust deed was given, the property address, the legal description, the current beneficiary of the trust deed, and the record owners of the property as of the recording of the notice of default. It is dated and signed by the trustee.

Mailing

Do not forget Section 57-1-26(2)(b) here. At least 20 days before the sale date, the trustee mails a signed copy of the notice of time and place of sale by certified or registered mail, return receipt requested, to each person whose name and address appear in a request recorded before the notice of default, including every party covered by a request contained in the trust deed itself.

The trustee’s duty of good faith

Section 57-1-25(5) states that a trustee exercising a power of sale owes the trustor a duty not to defraud, or conspire or scheme to defraud, the trustor. Utah’s trustee is not a neutral in the sense of owing both sides equal loyalty, but that floor is real and enforceable.

Step 8: Hold the auction

Section 57-1-27 governs the sale itself. On the date, at the time, and at the place designated in the notice, the trustee or the trustee’s attorney sells the property at public auction to the highest bidder, and conducts the sale acting as the auctioneer. Section 57-1-25(2) fixes two boundaries: the sale must be held between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m., and it must take place at a courthouse serving the county where the property or part of it is located.

Several rules shape how the auction runs:

• Parcel order. If the property consists of several known lots or parcels that can be sold separately, the trustor or the trustor’s successor in interest, if present, may direct the order in which they are sold, and the trustee must follow that direction.
• Who may bid. Any person may bid, including the beneficiary and the trustee, and the trustee may bid for the beneficiary.
• Bids are irrevocable. A bid is an irrevocable offer. The trustee may, in its discretion, require a successful bidder to make a deposit in the amount stated in the notice of sale.
• A defaulting bidder pays. If the highest bidder refuses to pay, the trustee either renotices the sale in the same manner as the original notice or sells to the next highest bidder. The refusing bidder is liable for any loss caused by the refusal, including interest, costs, and trustee and reasonable attorney fees, may have future bids on that property rejected, and forfeits the deposit, which is then treated as additional sale proceeds.

Postponing the sale

The person conducting the sale may postpone it for any cause considered expedient, by public declaration at the time and place last appointed for the sale. No additional notice is required unless the postponement runs longer than 45 days after the date designated in the original notice of sale. Past that point, the sale must be renoticed in the same manner as the original notice, which means restarting the publication, posting, and mailing cycle. Serial short postponements are therefore workable; a single long one is not.

Step 9: Deliver the trustee’s deed and distribute the money

Section 57-1-28 handles delivery of title. The purchaser pays the price bid as the trustee directs. Within five business days after the trustee receives payment, the trustee must execute and submit the trustee’s deed to the county recorder for recording, and on request give the purchaser an unrecorded copy of the signed deed. A trustee who misses that window is liable for any loss the purchaser incurs as a result.

The deed may contain recitals of compliance with Sections 57-1-19 through 57-1-36, covering the mailing, personal delivery, and publication of the notice of default, the mailing, publication, and posting of the notice of sale, and the conduct of the sale. Those recitals are prima facie evidence of compliance, and they are conclusive evidence in favor of bona fide purchasers and encumbrancers for value without notice. That is why a careful trustee documents every mailing: the recitals are only as good as the file behind them.

The deed conveys the trustee’s title and all right, title, interest, and claim of the trustor and the trustor’s successors, including after-acquired interests, without right of redemption, and it relates back to the time of the sale. Section 57-1-28(4) adds that a recorded trustee’s deed interest may not be divested by someone recording an affidavit purporting to rescind or cancel it, which is a direct answer to a familiar class of paper filed by borrowers after a sale. If title problems do surface later, a quiet title action is the corrective tool.

Credit bidding: how much the lender can bid without cash

A beneficiary bidding at its own sale does not write a check to itself. Section 57-1-28(1)(b) gives the beneficiary a credit on its bid, but caps that credit at an amount representing:

• The unpaid principal owed.
• Accrued interest as of the date of the sale.
• Advances for the payment of taxes, insurance, and maintenance and protection of the trust property.
• The beneficiary’s lien on the trust property.
• Costs of sale, including reasonable trustee and attorney fees.

Bid above that ceiling and the excess has to be funded in cash, because the surplus belongs to junior lienholders and the trustor under Section 57-1-29. Bid too low and a third-party bidder can take the property, though the beneficiary keeps its deficiency claim. Bid at the full debt and the deficiency claim disappears, because there is no balance left to recover. The credit bid decision is therefore a strategic one that should be made before sale day, with a current valuation in hand, not called out on the courthouse steps.

Surplus funds after a Utah trustee’s sale

Section 57-1-29 sets the waterfall. Proceeds go first to the costs and expenses of exercising the power of sale and of the sale, including trustee and attorney fees actually incurred but not exceeding any amount provided for in the trust deed; second to payment of the obligation secured by the trust deed; and third, the balance to the persons legally entitled to it.

Alternatively, the trustee may deposit the balance with the clerk of the district court in the county where the sale took place, along with an affidavit setting out the facts of the deposit and listing all known claimants and addresses. On deposit and filing, the trustee is discharged from further responsibility and the clerk deposits the funds with the state treasurer subject to court order. The clerk notifies listed claimants within 15 days.

From there, a claimant may file a petition for adjudication of priority by paying a $50 filing fee and giving notice to all listed claimants and any others known to the petitioner, specifying that claimants have 60 days to contest by affidavit or counter-petition. If nothing is filed in 60 days, the court orders disbursement without a hearing. If the petition is contested, the district court holds a hearing within 20 days to establish priorities. Anyone who fails to appear and assert a claim is barred once the court enters its order.

For a lender, the safest practice on any sale that produces a surplus is to interplead. Guessing at priority among junior deeds of trust, judgment liens, mechanics liens, and association liens is exactly the kind of judgment call the statute lets a trustee hand to a judge. The mechanics of association liens in this queue are covered in how long an HOA lien lasts in Utah.

Deficiency judgments: the three-month window that ends the case

Utah does not bar deficiency judgments after a trustee’s sale, but it puts a short fuse on them. Under Section 57-1-32, an action to recover the balance due on the obligation must be commenced within three months after the sale. The complaint must set forth the entire amount of the indebtedness secured by the trust deed, the amount for which the property was sold, and the fair market value of the property at the date of sale.

Before rendering judgment, the court must find the fair market value as of the sale date. The judgment may not exceed the amount by which the indebtedness, with interest, costs, and expenses of sale including trustee and attorney fees, exceeds that court-found fair market value. Note the precise mechanic: the offset is fair market value, not the price bid. A lender that credit bids far below value does not enlarge its deficiency, because the court substitutes value for the bid. The prevailing party in a deficiency action is entitled to costs and reasonable attorney fees.

Three months is a true deadline, not a limitations period with generous accrual rules. Lenders intending to pursue a deficiency should have an appraisal underway before the sale and a complaint drafted shortly after, because the case has to be filed while the valuation evidence is still tied to the sale date. Litigating one of these is ordinary civil litigation practice, with the added burden of proving value.

A related trap sits in Section 78B-2-313. Where a consumer-purpose loan on single-family residential property is resolved by a short sale with the lender’s consent, an action to recover the deficiency is barred unless it is commenced no more than three months after the release of mortgage or reconveyance of trust deed is recorded. That bar does not apply if the obligor or owner committed fraud in connection with the short sale, or where the parties signed an agreement in connection with the short sale obligating the borrower to pay some or all of the deficiency.

Trustee’s sale versus judicial foreclosure in Utah

Section 57-1-23 gives the beneficiary a choice: exercise the power of sale, or foreclose the trust deed the way a mortgage is foreclosed. In practice the choice is lopsided, and the table shows why almost every lender learning how to foreclose on a trust deed in Utah ends up on the nonjudicial track.

The redemption line is the whole ballgame for most lenders. After a trustee’s sale, the purchaser owns the property outright. After a judicial sale, the property remains subject to redemption under the rules governing execution sales, which means the buyer holds an asset someone else can take back. Section 78B-6-901 also imposes the one-action rule, providing that there is only one action for recovery of a debt or enforcement of a right secured solely by mortgage on real estate, and that the action must follow that chapter.

Judicial foreclosure still earns its place in specific situations: contested lien priority, collateral entangled with a title defect, claims against guarantors that the lender wants tried alongside the foreclosure, or a borrower who has filed suit anyway. Owners of complex commercial collateral should look at the overview of commercial real estate law before choosing a track.

Collecting rents while the foreclosure runs

Income property presents a cash-flow problem during the roughly four months a foreclosure takes. Utah’s Assignment of Rents Act, Title 57, Chapter 26, solves it. Section 57-26-104(1) provides that a security instrument creates an assignment of rents unless the instrument says otherwise, so most Utah trust deeds on rental property already carry the right. Section 57-26-105(2) perfects the assignment on recording of the security instrument.

There are three enforcement routes:

• Receiver. Section 57-26-107 entitles the assignee to appointment of a receiver where the assignor is in default and one of four conditions exists: the assignor agreed in a signed document to a receiver on default, the property appears insufficient to satisfy the obligation, the assignor failed to turn over proceeds, or a subordinate assignee obtained a receiver. Enforcement dates from the order appointing the receiver.
• Notice to the assignor. Section 57-26-108 allows enforcement by notifying the borrower.
• Notice to tenants. Section 57-26-109 allows the assignee to direct tenants to pay rent to it, using a notice with prescribed contents, with copies to the assignor and to other recorded assignees. After a complying notice, a tenant paying the landlord instead is generally not discharged, unless the tenant occupies the premises as a primary residence.

The payoff provision is Section 57-26-111. Enforcing an assignment of rents does not make the assignee a purchaser in possession, does not make it the borrower’s agent, does not constitute an election of remedies precluding a later action on the debt, does not limit, waive, or bar any foreclosure or power of sale remedy, does not violate Section 78B-6-901, and does not bar a deficiency judgment. A Utah lender can collect rents and foreclose at the same time without giving anything up. Section 57-26-112 then sets the application order for what is collected: enforcement expenses, property protection expenses, the secured obligation, subordinate lienholders who demand proceeds before distribution, and finally the assignor.

Getting possession after the sale

A trustee’s deed conveys title. It does not empty the building. Under Section 78B-6-802.5, a previous owner, trustor, or mortgagor is guilty of unlawful detainer if the person defaulted on obligations resulting in disposition of the property by trustee’s sale or sheriff’s sale and continues to occupy after being served with a notice to quit by the purchaser. That is the route to an eviction judgment against a holdover former owner, and it requires the notice to quit first.

Tenants are different. Section 78B-6-802(1)(i) makes a tenant under a bona fide tenancy as described in Section 702 of the federal Protecting Tenants at Foreclosure Act guilty of unlawful detainer only after continuing in possession past the effective date of a notice to vacate given in accordance with that federal section. Purchasers who assume a foreclosure wipes out leases misread both statutes and generate avoidable liability.

What stops a Utah trust deed foreclosure

Four things realistically interrupt a properly run trustee’s sale.

Bankruptcy

A petition triggers the automatic stay of 11 U.S.C. Section 362, which halts acts to obtain property of the estate and acts to create, perfect, or enforce a lien against property of the estate. A sale conducted in violation of the stay is void or voidable, so the trustee must confirm the docket before the sale, not after. Relief from stay is available under Section 362(d), including for cause such as lack of adequate protection, and where the debtor has no equity in the property and it is not necessary to an effective reorganization. Section 362(d)(4) authorizes in rem relief binding for two years against schemes involving unauthorized transfers or repeat filings, which is the answer to serial filings designed to stall a sale. Borrowers considering that route should understand the consequences described in the overview of bankruptcy practice in Utah, and the parallel analysis for association liens appears in what happens to an HOA lien in bankruptcy.

Reinstatement or payoff

The statutory cure right in Section 57-1-31 ends the foreclosure by operation of law when exercised within the three-month window, and a payoff at any point before the sale ends it as a matter of contract.

Tolling and postponement

A late reinstatement statement tolls the cure period, and a late payoff statement forces cancellation or a postponement of at least 10 business days, both under Section 57-1-31.5. A postponement beyond 45 days requires renoticing the sale under Section 57-1-27(2)(c).

Litigation

A trustor can sue for injunctive relief, typically alleging defective notice, an unqualified trustee, lack of authority in the party directing the sale, or fraud. Section 57-1-22.1 limits one common tactic: a party in an action involving a trust deed need not join the trustee unless the action pertains to a breach of the trustee’s obligations, and if the trustee is joined improperly the court must dismiss as to the trustee and award the trustee reasonable attorney fees.

Costs, fees, and what a trustee may not charge

Nonjudicial foreclosure costs are made up of recording fees set by each county recorder, newspaper publication charges, the public legal notice website charge, posting and service costs, certified mail, title work to identify parties entitled to notice, and trustee and attorney fees. None of those are fixed by Chapter 1, and publication in a large-circulation county costs meaningfully more than in a rural one, so a budget prepared for one county does not transfer to another.

What the statutes do fix are the limits. Section 57-1-21.5(6) bars the trustee from requiring a reinstating trustor, or a beneficiary acquiring the property through foreclosure, to pay costs exceeding the trustee’s actual costs incurred. Section 57-1-21.5(5) bars referral fees. Section 57-1-29(1)(a)(i) allows recovery from proceeds only of trustee and attorney fees actually incurred, and not more than any amount provided for in the trust deed. Section 57-1-31(1)(a) similarly limits the reinstatement figure to costs, expenses, and fees actually incurred. The consistent theme is that Utah permits real costs and disallows markups.

The only dollar figure Chapter 1 sets is the $50 filing fee a claimant pays to petition for adjudication of surplus proceeds under Section 57-1-29(3)(a).

Common mistakes that delay or void a trustee’s sale

These are the errors that show up repeatedly when a lender handles the process without counsel, and each one is a failure to follow the statutory sequence for how to foreclose on a trust deed in Utah rather than a judgment call.

1. Letting an unqualified trustee sign. The original trustee named in a trust deed is often an out-of-state entity or the lender itself. Check qualification under Section 57-1-21(1)(a)(i) or (iv) and substitute before recording the notice of default, not after.
2. Recording the substitution late. Section 57-1-22(3)(a) requires recording no later than the notice of default.
3. Missing a beneficiary signature. Section 57-1-22(2)(d) requires the substitution to be executed and acknowledged by all beneficiaries. Fractional note investors and co-trustees each have to sign.
4. Missing the 10-day mailing. The certified mailing of the notice of default under Section 57-1-26(2)(a) is easy to overlook when the recording happens on a Friday.
5. Misaligning publication windows. The final newspaper publication must fall 10 to 30 days before the sale, while the website posting runs 30 days. Build the schedule backward from the sale date.
6. Answering statement requests late. Five business days is the trigger in Section 57-1-31.5, and missing it tolls the cure period or forces a postponement.
7. Postponing past 45 days. Section 57-1-27(2)(c) then requires a complete renotice.
8. Bidding above the credit bid ceiling. Anything above the Section 57-1-28(1)(b) categories has to be paid in cash and flows to junior claimants.
9. Blowing the deficiency window. Three months after the sale under Section 57-1-32, with proof of fair market value as of the sale date.
10. Assuming Section 57-1-24.3 applies, or that it does not. Both errors are expensive. Confirm the beneficiary type, the loan purpose, and whether the property is owner-occupied.

A worked timeline

It helps to see how to foreclose on a trust deed in Utah laid out on a calendar. Assume a private lender holds a trust deed on a duplex in Utah County, the borrower stops paying in January, and the note was accelerated in February after the contractual notice period ran. Section 57-1-24.3 does not apply because the beneficiary is not a financial institution.

About four months from recording to auction, assuming nothing interrupts it. Add time for a bankruptcy filing, a tolled cure period, or a postponement.

When to bring in a Utah real estate attorney

Because only a Utah-licensed attorney or a Utah title company can exercise the power of sale, most lenders are hiring counsel by definition. The question is really when to hire, and the answer is before the first document is recorded. Knowing how to foreclose on a trust deed in Utah on paper is not the same as running the sequence under real deadlines with a borrower who is paying attention. Every one of the mistakes listed above is cheap to prevent and expensive to fix once a notice of default is on record.

Bring counsel in early when the collateral spans multiple counties, when the note is held by several investors, when the property is tenant-occupied, when a junior lienholder or an association also holds a claim, when the borrower has filed bankruptcy before, or when a deficiency is the real objective. Those situations reward planning, and they punish improvisation. A general overview of the practice is available at real estate attorney and real estate law firm, and lenders in the Wasatch Front market may want the page for real estate attorneys in Salt Lake City. Sellers who financed the sale themselves should also review seller financing considerations, and associations facing the same questions can start with whether an HOA can foreclose on a lien in Utah.

Written by Jeremy Eveland, a business and real estate attorney practicing in Utah.

This article is general information about Utah law as of September 2026, not legal advice. Statutes change, and the right answer depends on the loan documents and the facts. Reading this does not create an attorney-client relationship.