Saturday, December 25, 2010

City Of Cleveland, Local Non-Profit Target Lenders, Loan Servicers In Amended Federal Suit Over Blighted Foreclosures

In Cleveland, Ohio, WCPN Radio 90.3 FM reports:
  • A local nonprofit and the city of Cleveland are asking a federal judge to force nearly a dozen financial institutions and loan servicers to take care of the houses they took back in foreclosure or pay to knock them down.

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  • Two years ago, a nonprofit affiliated with Neighborhood Progress Inc, an umbrella organization for Cleveland’s community development corporations, sued [Deutsche Bank and Wells Fargo] arguing the houses they had taken back in foreclosure were becoming public nuisances.The cases bounced around the courts and Deutsche Bank and Wells Fargo ultimately paid to demolish the properties named in that suit.

  • But, the plantiffs say, the problem continues with yet more properties, and so the nonprofit Cleveland Housing Renewal Project and the city of Cleveland have refiled an amended suit in federal court. The defendants include not just Deutsche Bank, says attorney Thomas C Wagner, but also nine loan servicers including big Wall Street names like JP Morgan Chase.

For more, see Cleveland, Nonprofit Sue Deutsche Bank, Loan Servicers Over Bills for “Dangerously Blighted” Houses.