Cities Being Forced To Bear Costs Of Foreclosed Houses

Julie Parker — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 19:47:13 +0000

Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky are under siege being overwhelmed with hundreds of foreclosed units. The cities are being forced to bear costs of maintaining or demolishing these foreclosed properties. Banks from outside the state, who are the legal owners, have abandoned the houses.
Cincinnati has boarded up some houses and ordered the demolishing of others. Hundreds of other houses have been notified about violation of building codes. The owners of these foreclosed units are banks. They owe the city about $201,237 pertaining to fees for inspection, barricading and demolishing. Courts summon them for these violations related to the foreclosure actions taken but the banks hardly ever respond. As a result the municipalities are hard pressed to oversee the work of trimming overgrown grasses, winterizing and boarding up deserted houses from vagrants, drug peddlers and prostitutes. Abandoned houses bring down the market prices of property in the entire neighbourhood.
For the police, fire fighters and building inspectors the ordeal of these vacant foreclosed houses has become tiresome and expensive – to say the least.
In Spring Grove Village the police caught 40-year-old Christopher Hunley just has he was breaking into an empty house. Hunley was after the copper pipes and had to be charged for trespassing with a motive to vandalize and steal. The problem arose when the accusers could not find the owner to testify that Hunley did not have a permission to enter the premises. From the Hamilton County records Fannie Mae was the owner. But the latter objected to it saying that this was an error. The prosecutors finally tracked down Washington Mutual as the bonafide owners but the bank could not arrange for any representative to go down to Cincinnati to testify. Finally with time running out and Hunley in jail the prosecutors had no alternative but to accuse of misdemeanor and set him free!
Fannie Mae is among the worst offending lenders who have foreclosed on borrowers, evicted occupants and then let the property stand abandoned and derelict. The others are Deutsche Bank of Frankfurt and the ABN and Amro group of banks from the Netherlands. The banks state that they are doing their best to look after their foreclosed houses. Gabrielle Harrison of Fannie Mae said, “We are not perfect” and it may well happen that it causes them to overlook one property here and another there. Meanwhile indirectly the city pays the price in an indirect way for the blight of foreclosures.

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Foreclosures Need Not Be Inevitable

Julie Parker — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 12:22:17 +0000

Foreclosures need not necessarily be inevitable. There are many escape avenues and options before the patient and persevering borrowing who is determined not to give up the house. The important fact is time. The earlier the action the better will be the chances of getting a reprieve, says Darren Hamm of Neighborhood Hosing Services, Greater Cleveland.

Attorney Timothy Kozlowski and Hamm participated in a seminar focusing on foreclosures at Medina District Library. Thomas Russell, of the planner services of Medina County, joined them. Kozlowski explaining the foreclosure procedure to 50 people attending the conference, stressed the importance of taking prompt measures. He handed out a sheet to all with the headlines “A typical mortgage foreclosure lawsuit time line can play out in less than 180 days! Do not wait! Act now to save your home.”

As soon as the borrower fails to make a monthly mortgage payment the best thing is to contact the lender and or the local counseling group like Neighborhood Housing Services. The MERS or Mortgage Electronic Registration System complicates the matter by drawing in more players – the borrower, the mortgage holder, the lender, the guarantors and the insurance firm.

The securitization process is another hurdle. By it many mortgages had been made into packets and sold to distant investors. These had passed through Federal National Mortgage Association of Fannie Mae and Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation or Freddie Mac.

When the borrower fails to make payments for 90 days the lender can proceed with foreclosure with the help of the court.

Taking all these into consideration the advice is not to delay. Paperwork should not be ignored. Help must be sought. The best port of call is HUD certified counselor. Talk. The mantra is talk to the banker, talk to the attorney, talk to the mortgage servicer and ask to be linked on to the Loss Mitigation department and specifically not the Loss and Foreclosure Department. After all the aim is to prevent or bring down the loss both parties incur in the case of foreclosures. The lenders will respond. Foreclosures spell loss for them also.

The courts too are lenient towards mediation. Help may be taken of the clause pertaining to Leave to Plead that will allow for 28 days extra grace to thrash out the matter.

The borrower may make a counter allegation of fraud or negligence against the lender. In the foreclosure atmosphere today the dominating mood is that of mediation from all sides.

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Cities Being Forced To Bear Costs Of Foreclosed Houses

Foreclosures Need Not Be Inevitable