Municipal Scandal Involving Shoddy Repairs Made Through City Home Improvement Program May Cost Family Its Residence

In Sandusky, Ohio, the Sandusky Register reports:

• The city’s housing scandal might soon deliver one of its biggest blows. It may cost a family its home. Later this month, the foreclosure process will begin on 902 First St., where Derrick and LeAnn Close live with their two children and Derrick’s ill mother. The family blames the city for the possible foreclosure.

• Between 2004 and 2006, malfeasance in the city’s housing department caused 41 homes in the Community Housing Improvement Program, better known as CHIP, to receive subpar repairs, or none at all. The program’s mission was to provide loan-interest [sic] loans and repairs to low-income families to improve their homes and neighborhoods. The Closes were one of the families that received subpar repairs.

• Workers installed a faulty porch, bad electrical wiring, inefficient windows and ill-fitted doors, and did other shoddy work. The home still has exposed lead paint in its kitchen, and flakes of lead paint blanket the basement floor. In return for the work, the Closes now owe the city $33,000 as part of a lien on their home.

• Last year, when the Closes fell on hard times, they asked the city to subordinate the lien, so they could refinance their home. Subordination means allowing a borrower to pay off other creditors first. [...] But the city rejected their subordination claim, and now they face foreclosure. The couple believes city officials turned their backs on them. “I don’t know what we’re going to do,” LeAnn says. “They didn’t fix our house. They made it worse. The least they could do is subordinate so we can refinance.”

For more, see CHIPped out of a home: Housing scandal could cost Sandusky family everything.