Connecticut Renter Facing Foreclosure Eviction Invokes New Bailout Law In Attempt To Fight Off Fannie

In Hartford, Connecticut, The Hartford Courant reports:

• Four days after Evelyn Colon paid the September rent for her Hartford apartment, a U.S. marshal knocked on the door. He handed her a notice that she had to be out in a month. Fannie Mae, the huge mortgage financier, had foreclosed on her building and was evicting Colon and two other tenants.

• Colon is now fighting her eviction in what her attorneys believe is the first court challenge in the country to use a provision(1) deep within the government's $700 billion bailout legislation to seek protection for renters facing eviction after foreclosure. She will be able to stay in her apartment while the case is litigated.

***

• Colon's attorneys at Greater Hartford Legal Aid Inc., an agency that helps low-income clients, are arguing that Fannie Mae became a federal agency when it came under the control of the Federal Housing Finance Agency Sept. 7 and is therefore bound by the financial services bailout legislation.

For the rest of the story, see Hartford Tenant Fights To Stay In Home After Foreclosure (if link expires, try here or try here).

See also, WTNH-TV Channel 8: Renter fights back against foreclosure:

• "Basically we've asked the court to throw this case out, the eviction, out of court, or, if the court doesn't feel comfortable doing that, to kind of put things on pause until the Treasury or another federal agency, perhaps the F.H.F.A. (Federal Housing Finance Agency), issues a policy statement saying what does the language in the Bailout Bill mean," said Stephanie D'Ambrose from Greater Hartford Legal Aid.

(1) Section 109(b) of the Federal bailout bill may require the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury to work with the F.H.F.A. and other government entities to permit tenants like Evelyn to remain in their apartments after foreclosure. BetaTenantRentSkimming