The Foreclosure Injustice in The Non-Judicial States
It is now three years since the crisis in the housing market started. Meanwhile Maryland and District of Columbia have altered their foreclosure laws to allow for greater protection to the borrowers. However Virginia has gone in the reverse direction.
In 2009 the legislature of Virginia State unanimously made into law a bill making things easier for the lenders. They will be better able to argue in their defense in courts when challenged by the borrowers for giving the latter very little warning of the forthcoming foreclosures.
In Virginia the process moves so swiftly that the house owners get less than a fortnight to note that their property is about to be sold in an auction; it is the fastest in the entire country. The situation leaves the borrowers facing an impossible deadline. Within that short time they have to get proof, file a legal suit and be prepared with thousands of dollars to deposit with the court as bond. It is not surprising that many of the victims fail to comply with this tall order and for them time runs out.
With the Virginia State law on the side of the lenders things are made easier for lenders. Elsewhere they pursue their routine practice of submitting false documents to seize countless houses. For borrowers the situation is 
insurmountable and grim, contends many lawyers and consumer advocates who have tried to save the sinking boats of the victims. James W. Speer of Virginia Poverty Law Center (executive director) said, “There’s no question that people are losing their homes when they should not be”.
In many of the states house owners threatened with foreclosure automatically allowed a day in the courts to present their side of the picture to the judge as to why they should be allowed to keep their hearth and homes. The judicial process at least allows some check on errors and abuses.
But in 28 states as well as Virginia and District of Columbia, as per the observations of RealtyTrac, borrowers are not so lucky. They are up against non-judicial foreclosure. The lenders can foreclose bypassing the judicial system.
Maryland stands half way – it permits the process more play in favour of the borrowers.
In Virginia and other non-judicial states the fate of the house owners is primarily in the hands of private entities named ‘trustees’ and not judges.
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