Welcome to The Home Equity Theft Reporter, a blog dedicated to informing the consumer public and the legal profession about Home Equity Theft issues. This blog will consist of information describing the various forms of Home Equity Theft and links to news reports & other informational sources from throughout the country about the victims of Home Equity Theft and what government authorities and others are doing about it.
Saturday, April 21, 2012
NYC Renters In Multi-Unit Buildings, Tenant Advocates Left Dealing With Mess Created By Overleveraged, Absentee Landlords Who Cluelessly Jumped Into Real Estate Speculation At Height Of Housing Bubble
In The Bronx, New York, The Atlantic Cities reports:
Foreclosure came to 553 East 169th Street in the Bronx in November of 2010. No doubt hundreds of other dwellings nationwide were foreclosed on that month, contributing to the raft of vacant, unkempt single-family homes with which so many cities are now stuck. But 553 East 169th Street isn't empty. Eighteen families still live there. As renters, New York law allows them to stay put, since they weren't the ones who had a problem with the bank. Their landlord did.
These people – the renting tenants of foreclosed apartment buildings – are among the least-recognized casualties of the housing crisis. “These are individuals who have never once taken out a loan,” says Celia Weaver, an organizing and policy advocate with the Urban Homesteading Assistance Board in New York.
New York City has the highest renter rate in the country, with 69 percent of all households renting, and so the mess of foreclosed multi-unit residences is particularly ugly here. Between January of 2010 and December of 2011, Weaver says more than 400 multi-family buildings fell into foreclosure in the city, mostly in central Brooklyn and the Bronx, affecting about 6,600 apartments. Some of these buildings are as small as six units, others as large as a hundred.
So what eventually happens to properties that still have tenants but no permanent owners? For starters, the rats move in.
***
Buildings that have gone into foreclosure are transferred to court-appointed receivers (read: “politically connected lawyers,” Weaver says). They’re charged with collecting rent and making repairs. But the reality is that most of these apartments, built in the 1920s and '30s, began falling apart long before a receiver showed up.
Landlords in fear of foreclosure, after all, are more likely to funnel rent checks at mortgage payments than leaky roofs. And a temporary receiver isn’t motivated to make long-term investments in a property, like say a new boiler or broken ductwork. “They’re not good at maintaining these buildings,” Weaver says. “That’s not really their goal. They don’t own the property. So there’s basically no accountability.”
***
Weaver’s organization has been working with the tenants here and in other buildings in the city to find responsible new owners (perhaps the tenants themselves?) and to push banks into taking financial responsibility for maintaining these places in the meantime.
A lot of these buildings originally went into foreclosure, even though they house rent-paying tenants, because they were overleveraged at the height of the housing boom by speculators who hoped to drive out rent-regulated existing tenants in favor of newer ones who could be charged much more.
“So much of the news around this foreclosure crisis has been focused on getting low-income homeowners the opportunity to get back into their homes,” Weaver says. “This is not exactly what we’re fighting here. We don’t want to get the building back to the slum lord who speculated it.”
CBC News: Betrayal of Trust (A CBC investigation reveals how lawyers across Canada have misappropriated and mishandled clients money, to the tune of tens of millions of dollars, or sometimes even charging vulnerable people top dollar for shoddy services)
Land Contract/Contract For Deed/Rent-To-Own Rackets
The New York Times: The Housing Trap (In the wake of the housing crisis, low-income families have turned to seller financing to buy homes but these deals can be a money trap)
Beware The Fine Print: Consumers Forced To Sign Away Their Rights To Use Court System
The NY Times: Arbitration Everywhere, Stacking the Deck of Justice(Part 1 in series examining how clauses buried in tens of millions of contracts have deprived Americans of one of their most fundamental constitutional rights: their day in court)
Foreclosure Mills' Abysmal Record In Complying With New NYS Foreclosure Requirements
Justice Deceived: How Large Foreclosure Firms Subvert State Regulations Protecting Homeowners
MFY Legal Services Report On Questionable Practices By Process Servers In Debt Collection Cases
Justice Disserved: A Preliminary Analysis of the Exceptionally
Low Appearance Rate by Defendants in Lawsuits Filed in the Civil Court of the City of New York
Mortgage Mess Redux: Robo-Signers Return (A Reuters investigation finds that many banks are still employing the controversial foreclosure practices that sparked a major outcry last year)
CNN Video: As Foreclosures Mount, Florida Court Turns To 'Rocket Docket'
The Wall Street Journal: A Florida Court's 'Rocket Docket' Blasts Through Foreclosure Cases (2 Questions, 15 Seconds, 45 Days to Get Out; 'What's to Talk About?' Says a Judge)
"Produce The Note" Strategy When Dealing With Missing Promissory Notes In Foreclosure Actions
ABC Video: Fighting Against Foreclosure (Some homeowners have found a new tactic to keep the banks at bay)
<< Home