Cook County Circuit Court is delaying foreclosure actions against some homeowners as it tries to work through an ever-growing backlog of cases.

Chancery Division Presiding Judge Dorothy Kirie Kinnaird notified judges and attorneys April 1 that all mortgage default calls ? those first court appearances made by a lender when a borrower has not responded to a foreclosure action ? would be canceled for July and August.

This has the effect of giving delinquent homeowners more time to find a way to stay in their homes. It may have the greatest effect on some of the homeowners involved in the 13,196 mortgage foreclosures filed in the year's first quarter, because those default calls could have taken place in early summer. As of last year, about 80 percent of homeowners involved in foreclosure cases did not respond to filings.

Dealing with a growing number of foreclosures, the court has been unable to keep up with the 2008 load, much less tackle the increasing filings made this year. As of the end of February, 46,854 mortgage foreclosure cases were pending in the Chancery Division. Based on current trends, Kinnaird estimates the number of foreclosure filings in Cook County would surpass 52,000 this year, according to the administrative order. Last year, Cook County recorded 43,876 mortgage foreclosure filings.

Kinnaird noted in her order that since 2005, the court has assigned 11 additional judges, seven extra courtrooms, 11 additional law clerks and four more secretaries to foreclosures. The caseload has made it difficult for the court, she wrote, to maintain a meaningful case management system.

"The Illinois Supreme Court requires that a case management conference be handled in every case," she said in an interview. "Because of the numbers of foreclosures that have been filed in recent years, we have not been able to hold the kind of case management system we want."

Kinnaird's decision does not apply to cases where a homeowner has answered or fought a foreclosure or those cases that are uncontested.

Housing advocates said the move seems to have been a necessary step, because doing nothing would have crippled efforts to deal with the surging figures.

"If it's an unintended consequence that people are going to get more time to resolve situations with their lender, then we're not opposed to that," said Bob Palmer, executive director of Housing Action Illinois.

Data released Thursday revealed a sharp increases in Illinois foreclosure activity, as mortgage lenders and servicers let lapse the self-imposed moratoriums they put on foreclosure proceedings while they waited for the Obama administration to release details of its housing rescue plan.

Thursday, RealtyTrac said foreclosure notices in Illinois, which range from the initial filing of a foreclosure action to notice of a bank repossession, rose 8.3 percent from February to March. Compared with March 2008, foreclosure notices were up 46 percent.