Foreclosing Lender Fails To Record Title To Ohio Home, Leaving Former Owner On The Hook For Criminal Building Code Charges

In Hamilton County, Ohio, The Cincinnati Enquirer reports:

• A Florida-based mortgage company deliberately failed to record a deed on a College Hill home it took by foreclosure because it didn't want to take responsibility for maintaining it, the former homeowner says in a lawsuit. The homeowner, Demetria Scriber-Hinkston of Pleasant Ridge, now faces criminal building code violations [...] because the deed is still in her name. Cincinnati prosecutors say they won't drop charges. Her lawsuit, filed in Hamilton County Common Pleas Court on Friday [Dec. 21], claims that Everhome Mortgage Co. of Jacksonville, Fla. "failed and refused to record the deed to 6129 Cary, in part to avoid responsibility to maintain the property."

• Hinkston is one of a growing number of homeowners who have found themselves responsible for taxes and maintenance even after they've lost their homes to foreclosure or bankruptcy. One Cuyahoga County study suggests there are at least 1,400 such homeowners there, and a bill in the Ohio Senate would require sheriffs to file deeds within two weeks of a foreclosure auction being finalized. [...] "It's hardly a paperwork screw-up when they know the prior owner is going to be on the hook for the maintenance of the property. These national mortgage companies just can't claim ignorance and paperwork problems," said Robert B. Newman, Hinkston's lawyer.

For more, see Lawsuit: Company avoided deed (Tried to get out of maintaining property).

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