The Notice of Sale (NOS) or Notice of Trustee Sale (NTS), just like the Notice of Default, is a legal document that is filed with the county recorder's office for the county of that homeowner.
This document gives notice of the homeowner being in default on his loan and the pending forced sale of the home.
Once this document is filed with the county, the bank now has the right to actually go and forcibly sell the homeowners home right out from underneath them.
In some states this is done under the jurisdiction of a judge who reviews the paperwork and orders the sale.
In other states it is done by the trustee designated in the Deed of Trust, and the sale is set up under their direction.
In most cases, the sale date is set for as soon as 3 weeks after the filing of the NOS, while in others it may be several months.
To get to the point where a Notice of Sale is being filed against a homeowner, first a Notice of Default (NOD) must have been filed with the county, and then a period of 90 days or longer must have elapsed without the loan being brought current.
So if the loan has not been brought current from the time the NOD was filed, the bank now has the legal right to file this Notice of Sale and begin the process of setting up the forced sale of the home.
To use California as an example, once the Notice of Sale is filed, the note holder must wait a minimum of 21 days before they can hold the auction on the home.
Once that 21 day period is up, then the holder of that note can sell the home at auction and the homeowners will be forced from their home.