*3Chics knows this is a long, involved post, but worth taking the time to read.
Now we all know that consumers made their contributions to the mortgage crisis by signing their names on the dotted line. Folks will say that consumers are greedy, that they bought more house than they could safely afford. And that’s absolutely true in some cases. Some willingly knew what they’d signed up for, while others were not as savvy or educated in the ways of banking and mortgages. They just wanted a slice of the American dream, called home ownership.
What took us so long to call for an investigation into the shenanigans of America’s banking practices? Last week JP Morgan Chase & Bank of America’s mortgages and lending practices were called out. Can you say follow the paper trail? Where’s the PAPER? This is the #1 questions home owners need to ask the banks when it comes to their mortgages.
Here we are approaching the midterm elections, and now the shit is really starting to hit the fan. I wonder what all those folks who don’t have a permanent residence are going to do come November 2… just wondering…
*Pay particular attention to the states involved in the shady bank mortgage practices. Also, FYI: Here’s a list of bank owned property and foreclosures.
From today’s print edition of The Washington Post:
Pelosi, Lawmakers Call for Federal Probe on Mortgage Lenders
By Brady Dennis and Ariana Eunjung Cha
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called on the Justice Department to investigate the nation’s largest mortgage lenders on Tuesday, and Maryland joined a growing list of states seeking to halt foreclosures while they probe claims of fraudulent filings.
In a letter to U.S. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., Pelosi and dozens of other Democrats accused the nation’s biggest banks of making it difficult for struggling borrowers to get foreclosure relief while the firms routinely evicted them with flawed court papers.
The group said that recent reports of lenders initiating hundreds of thousands of questionable foreclosures “amplify our concerns that systemic problems exist.”
The request from Democrats puts pressure on the Obama administration to get more involved on a matter that it so far has said little about publicly. The move is also likely to stoke cries for a broad moratorium on foreclosures across the country.
On Tuesday, the AFL-CIO joined other consumer groups that have called for such an action. Foreclosures across the nation could grind to a halt anyway as more states freeze the process.
Real estate analysts, however, warned that the moratorium could overwhelm the court system and wreak havoc on the fragile housing market by scaring away potential buyers of foreclosed properties.
The problems now tainting hundreds of thousands of foreclosures came to light last month when Ally Financial – the recipient of a $17 billion federal bailout – suspended evictions in 23 states where a court order is required to seize a property.
Other lenders soon followed suit, acknowledging problems with foreclosure filings, including potentially forged documents and the practice of employing “robo-signers” who signed off on thousands of evictions every month without verifying their accuracy. Flawed paperwork also has shown up in the 27 states, including Virginia and Maryland, where lenders can foreclose without a judge’s consent. Read on.
This so-called crisis has been brewing for some time. Check out this article from Crooks and Liars:
December 24, 2008 01:00 PM
Another Nasty Side To The Foreclosure Debacle
By Jamie
As if the foreclosures alone weren’t wreaking enough havoc on our economy, we also find out the whole process is starting to hurt our local cities in other ways we didn’t imagine:
Cincinnati wants Deutsche Bank and Wells Fargo to pay for what officials say is neglect of foreclosed-upon properties that’s worsening blight in city neighborhoods.
The banks own more than 100 properties in Hamilton County.
Representatives appear often in local courts to prosecute foreclosure actions against property owners, the city says in a lawsuit, but don’t show up when Cincinnati asks them to maintain abandoned properties titled to them. The city wants repayment for boarding up, demolishing and the other work done to Deutsche and Wells Fargo properties. The suit didn’t specify an amount.
It really upsets me when I hear people on the right try to say the foreclosure problem is from greedy people trying to live outside of their means, and we should let them suffer. Sure there are a lot of foreclosures that are the product of people over-extending themselves, but just ignoring that leads to these costs being passed onto struggling local governments. Not only that, but it also affects the former neighbors of these foreclosed homeowners. People sit there and pay their mortgages on time, take pride in their home ownership and try to make something good out of the largest investment they will most likely ever make. In turn, they get rewarded with lower property values, because of a foreclosed house turned abandoned by the bank, now devaluing up their neighborhood.
I got a feeling the lawsuit being brought on by Cincinnati is only the start of it. We will see more cities follow suit (no pun intended) down the road as they realize how much this nightmare is costing them. Then the banks will want to recoup the costs of these lawsuits and having to actually maintain the properties they couldn’t wait to foreclose on. Of course the banks are only worried about their own well-being. Why should they worry that your own property value is also being decreased, or that your local government is having to absorb some big costs associated with the foreclosures?
Pandora’s Box is just now opening, and without interaction by Congress, in the form of a homeowner bailout/rescue, we will be facing a vicious cycle that will continue for some time to come and cost all of us more than we could imagine. Until that happens, merry Christmas from the Bush/Republican economy.
And then there’s this from Hispanic Business:
| Foreclosure Debacle. Can’t These Guys do Anything Right?
“Can you say “low hanging fruit?” For a politician, say an attorney general running for a Senate seat, a big, bad, mean bank taking a family home from Mr. and Mrs. Registered Voter and their six kids four weeks before midterm elections and then forging the paperwork is like Christmas come early.” Read the rest here. |
Who do you think will pay the biggest price for these bank’s shenanigans?
And don’t think for one minute that not owning a home or having a physical place of residence/address won’t be used against you come voting time November 2. There are a myriad of ways to suppress our votes, and this is surely one of the ways.
If you or any of your family members are approached about foreclosures, ASK the bank(s) for DOCUMENTATION. All of it. and get yourselves an attorney.
