Foreclosure petitions in the Bay State rose again in June, increasing 13.1 percent compared with June 2015, according to a new report from The Warren Group, publisher of Banker & Tradesman. This marks the 28th consecutive month of year-over-year increases in foreclosure starts.

Lenders filed 1,002 petitions to foreclose in June, compared with 886 filed in June of last year. There have been 6,616 petitions filed year to date in Massachusetts, a 24.4 percent increase from last year’s mark through June with 5,316. Petitions mark the first step in the foreclosure process, when lenders file notice of their intention to foreclose with the Commonwealth’s Land Court.

Timothy Warren Jr.

“Foreclosure starts continued to climb in the first two quarters of 2016, but the rate of increase has slowed,” said Timothy Warren Jr., CEO of The Warren Group. “Lenders continue to work through a backlog of delinquent mortgages and get foreclosure proceedings started on the most difficult cases. The higher volume of starts that we have been seeing over the past 2 years is likely to continue for the balance of the year.”

There were 887 auction notices filed in June, a 67.4 percent increase from the 530 filed in June 2015. There have been 4,648 auctions in Massachusetts year to date, a 45.8 percent increase from the same stretch in 2015 when there were 3,187. An auction notice is a legal advertisement that the lender has scheduled an auction and publicly announced the time, date and address in local newspapers.

There were 470 foreclosure deeds filed in June, a 15.8 percent increase from the 406 deeds filed in June 2015. There have been a total of 2,872 deeds recorded in Massachusetts in 2016, a 41.5 percent increase from the 2,030 filed through June 2015. These deeds represent completed foreclosures, when lenders record a new deed at the Registry of Deeds indicating there has been a change in the ownership of the foreclosed property.