the more they stay the same.
Two years ago this week I was writing about a Sheriff in Chicago (Cook County) that was refusing to do foreclosure evictions until the banks got their property information updated. It seems that he was evicting some people that were tenants and COMPLETELY unaware of what was happening to the properties. These folks had been making their rent payments as agreed with the landlords… and the landlords weren’t paying their mortgage, nor had they notified their renters that the property was going to be foreclosed by the banks.
Then, as now, I was not a fan of what the Sheriff was doing. He was defying a Court Order to evict people from property that they no longer had a right to possess. However, I also thought (and still do) that the landlords deserve jail time for defrauding their renters.
Now, we have banks committing fraud and illegally processing foreclosures. In fact, several large processors have halted foreclosures nationwide, while others are halting them in multiple states.
But, regardless of which issue we are looking to confront, halting ALL foreclosures isn’t the right path. Instead, the banks need to process them according to the law. Don’t forget, that the bank employees that perjured themselves also need to be punished. We also need to remember exactly WHO the victims are in this situation, and it isn’t the people that failed to pay their mortgage and are in the process of foreclosure. Rather, it is the investors (not the banks, unless they own the note) that loaned for the purchase of the home. The agreement was quite explicit… Pay the mortgage or LOSE THE HOUSE.
With the issue of the renters that were getting caught up in foreclosures in Chicago (and anywhere else), while current on their rent, they SHOULD have qualified as victims and not been forced out of the home for which they were paying. And in that case, the landlords should have been prosecuted… and maybe sued. Or both.
From the original post…
I may be an unsympathetic meanie… but I am also logical. First of all, I can see that in the case of renters that have been making their rental payments on time… those that the Sheriff of Cook County is trying to protect… they are the victims. They did what THEY were supposed to do. The owner didn’t do what THEY were supposed to do.
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