Foreclosure Actions Backing Up In Boston

In Boston, Massachusetts, the Boston Herald reports:

• Thousands of abandoned foreclosed homes across Massachusetts will remain shuttered for months due to a case backlog at the overwhelmed Massachusetts Land Court. Karyn Scheier, chief justice of the Land Court, acknowledged yesterday that a deluge of foreclosure applications has swamped the court. New cases are now coming in at a rate of 145 per day. At the current pace, the court will handle nearly 36,000 new foreclosure applications this year due to the subprime-mortage mess - up from just under 30,000 last year and about 20,000 two years ago, Scheier said.

• “Staffing levels are not up and we are struggling,” she said. Real estate attorneys say the paper jam is adding an extra two to three months to an already frustratingly slow process of selling off foreclosed homes. The result is buyers who purchase homes at foreclosure auctions and elsewhere can’t take title to properties quickly - and abandoned and shuttered homes remain neighborhood eyesores for months longer than many had hoped.

For more, see Land court swamped (Foreclosure surge slows system to crawl).