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Foreclosure聽activity surged last month across about half of the nation's states, as banks tackled a backlog of homes with mortgages that had gone unpaid yet remained in limbo due to delays stemming from foreclosure-abuse claims.

The increase occurred across 26 states where the courts supervise the聽foreclosure聽process. In contrast, the 24 states where the courts do not play a role in the process saw activity decline in February,聽foreclosure聽listing firm RealtyTrac Inc. said Thursday.

While uneven, the pace of聽foreclosures聽is accelerating following a $25 billion settlement reached last month between the nation's biggest mortgage lenders and state officials. The settlement was over the industry's alleged聽foreclosure聽abuses.

Major banks temporarily put聽foreclosures聽on hold in the fall of 2010 after claims surfaced that lenders and mortgage servicers were processing聽foreclosures聽without verifying documents. As a result, many homes that would have normally ended up foreclosed were left in a procedural limbo, particularly in states where courts play a role in the process.

But that logjam has begun to ease, and banks are moving to sort out their roster of problem mortgages.

"We're not just seeing an increase in properties starting the聽foreclosure聽process, as we have in previous months, but we're starting to see dramatic increases in properties completing the聽foreclosure聽process in many of those judicial聽foreclosure聽states," said Daren Blomquist, a vice president at RealtyTrac.

That means potentially more foreclosed homes hitting the market this year that could drag down the value of neighboring homes.

Among states with a judicial聽foreclosure聽process,聽foreclosure聽activity rose 2 percent last month from January, and climbed 24 percent from February last year, the firm said.

Foreclosure聽activity across states without a court-supervised process fell 5 percent in February from the previous month and declined 23 percent from a year earlier.

RealtyTrac bases聽foreclosure聽activity on filings that signal when a home is in some stage of the聽foreclosureprocess: an initial default notice, a scheduled home auction or a home repossession, which is when a property goes back to the lender.

Overall, U.S.聽foreclosure聽activity dipped 2 percent from January and was down 8 percent from February last year.

Taken individually, some states registered far higher increases in聽foreclosure聽activity last month.

Default notices, the first step in the聽foreclosure聽process, edged up 1 percent nationally last month from January, but fell 7 percent on an annual basis. But several states posted big annual increases, including Hawaii (321 percent), Maryland (157 percent) and Florida (33 percent) 鈥� all three states where courts play a role inforeclosures.

Initial default notices fell sharply in several states, including Nevada (89 percent) and Michigan (72 percent). New York bucked the trend of other judicial states, posting an annual drop of 44 percent in default notices last month.

Banks repossessed 63,834 U.S. homes last month, down 4 percent from January and a decline of 1 percent from February last year, RealtyTrac said.

Once more, the national figures don't tell the whole story, however.

Repossessions skyrocketed in February versus a year earlier in Massachusetts (114 percent), North Carolina (95 percent), Florida (90 percent) and Georgia (76 percent), among other states.

"At the end of the day in 2012, we are going to see an increase in聽foreclosures聽nationally from 2011," Blomquist said.

RealtyTrac projects聽foreclosures聽will rise 25 percent this year to more than 1 million homes. Last year, lenders took back 804,000 homes.

More than 6 million homeowners were either behind on their mortgage payments or in聽foreclosure聽at the end of last year, by some estimates. And about a quarter of all U.S. homeowners, some 11 million, are underwater on their homes, owing more on their mortgages than their homes are worth, according to CoreLogic, a real estate data firm.

At the state level, Nevada continued to post the nation's highest聽foreclosure聽rate last month, with one in every 278 households in the state receiving a foreclosure-related filing. That's more than twice the national average.