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.
Friday, January 11, 2013
JPM Chase Abandons Home In Foreclosure Limbo; Bankster's Handiwork Leaves Homeowner With 'Zombie Title', Dying & Ineligible To Get Social Security Disability Benefits Needed In Effort To Dodge Early Grave
Reuters reports:
Joseph Keller doesn't expect he'll live to see the end of 2013. He blames the house at 190 Avondale Avenue.
Five years ago, Keller, 10 months behind on his mortgage payments, received notice of a foreclosure judgment from JP Morgan Chase. In a few weeks, the bank said, his three-story house with gray vinyl siding in Columbus, Ohio, would be put up for auction at a sheriff's sale.
The 58-year-old former social worker and his wife, Jennifer, packed up their home of 13 years and moved in with their daughter. Joseph thought he would never have anything to do with the house again. And for about a year, he didn't.
Then it started to stalk him.
First, in 2010, the county sued Keller because the house, already picked clean by scavengers, was in a shambles, its hanging gutters and collapsed garage in violation of local housing code. Then the tax collector started sending Keller notices about mounting back taxes, sewer fees and bills for weed and waste removal. And last year, Chase's debt collector began pressing Keller to pay his mortgage, which had swollen, with penalties and fees, from $62,100.27 to $84,194.69.
The worst news came last January, when the Social Security Administration rejected Keller's application for disability benefits; the "asset" on Avondale Avenue rendered him ineligible. Keller's medical problems include advanced liver disease, hepatitis C and inactive tuberculosis. Without disability coverage, he can't get the liver transplant he needs to stay alive.
"I can't make it end," says Keller. "This house, I can't get out."
Keller continues to bear responsibility for the house because on December 23, 2008 - about two months after he received Chase's notice of sale - the bank filed to dismiss the foreclosure judgment and the order of sale. Chase said it sent Keller a copy of its court filing on December 9, 2008. Keller says he never received any notification. Either way, his name remained on the property title.
WITH IMPUNITY
The Kellers are caught up in a little-known horror of the U.S. housing bust: the zombie title. Six years in, thousands of homeowners are finding themselves legally liable for houses they didn't know they still owned after banks decided it wasn't worth their while to complete foreclosures on them. With impunity, banks have been walking away from foreclosures much the way some homeowners walked away from their mortgages when the housing market first crashed.
"The banks are just deciding not to foreclose, even though the homeowners never caught up with their payments," says Daren Blomquist, vice president at RealtyTrac, a real-estate information company in Irvine, California.
Since 2006, 10 million homes have fallen into foreclosure, according to RealtyTrac, a number that in earlier, more stable times would have taken nearly two decades to reach. Of those foreclosures, more than 2 million have never come out. Some may be occupied by owners who have been living gratis. Others have been caught up in what is now known as the robo-signing scandal, when banks spun out reams of fraudulent documents to foreclose quickly on as many homeowners as they could.
And then there are cases like the Kellers, in which homeowners moved out after receiving notice of a foreclosure sale, thinking they were leaving the house in bank hands. No national databases track zombie titles. But dozens of housing court judges, code enforcement officials, lawyers and other professionals involved in foreclosures across the country tell Reuters that these titles number in the many thousands, and that the problem is worsening.
"There are thousands of foreclosures in limbo, just hanging out there, just sitting, with nothing being done," says Cleveland Housing Court Judge Raymond Pianka, whose pending court cases tied to derelict properties have doubled in the past two years, to 1,000. He says the surge is due largely to homes vacated by people who fled before an imminent foreclosure sale, only to learn later that they remain legally responsible for their house.
When people move out after receiving a notice of a planned foreclosure sale and the bank then cancels, municipalities are left to deal with the mess. Some spend public funds on securing, cleaning and stabilizing houses that generate no tax revenue. Others let the houses rot. In at least three states in recent months, houses abandoned by owners and banks alike have exploded because the gas was never shut off.
THREAT OF JAIL
Unsuspecting homeowners have had their wages garnished, their credit destroyed and their tax refunds seized. They've opened their mail to find bills for back taxes, graffiti-scrubbing services, demolition crews, trash removal, gutter repair, exterior cleaning and lawn clipping. At their front doors they've encountered bailiffs brandishing summonses to appear in court.
In some cities, people with zombie titles can be sentenced to probation - with the threat of jail if they don't bring their houses into compliance.
"These people have become like indentured serfs, with all of the responsibilities for the properties but none of the rights," says retired Cleveland-Marshall College of Law Professor Kermit Lind.
***
Cases against zombie-title holders are rising due to everything from sewer bills to tilting chimneys, and they are clogging the courts. In Milwaukee, Wisconsin, about 900 cases in the foreclosure process involve zombie titles. In South Bend, Indiana, the number is 1,275, up from 600 in 2006. In Memphis, Tennessee, cases have doubled in the past two years to 1,500.
In Cleveland, 15 percent of foreclosures between 2005 and 2009 stalled out in foreclosure limbo, more than a third of them involving homeowners who had fled foreclosure notices, according to the Case Western Reserve study.
***
Once a bank walks away from a foreclosure, the real rot begins. Living rooms turn into meth labs. Falling shingles menace passers-by. Squatters' cooking fires turn into infernos. The latest iteration of the trend: gas explosions.
Electric companies usually shut off the juice when homeowners tell the utility they are moving. But natural-gas companies usually don't. In recent months, abandoned homes have exploded in Chicago, Cleveland and Bridgeport, Connecticut. In all cases, foreclosed homeowners had moved out. With no one home to smell the gas, it went undetected - until the houses blew.
"We are seeing more and more close calls," says Mark McDonald, a former natural gas public safety worker who now runs the New England Gas Workers Association. "These houses are a formula for disaster."
***
In Columbus, Ohio, Joseph Keller recently paid a visit to the empty house on Avondale Avenue. In the living room, the floor was littered with dirty diapers, pill bottles, condoms, sooty mattresses and soda cans. In the kitchen, squatters had hung pink curtains.
"They tore it to hell and back," Keller said, kicking at a dirty mattress. "We never would have left the home if we weren't told to get out."
The Kellers live in their daughter's dining room, where their queen-size bed leaves little room to maneuver. Joseph can't sit, stand or sleep for more than 15 minutes at a time. He can't take pain medication because of his diseased liver. Every few months, he makes a trip to the emergency room, where doctors drain his abdomen of excess fluid.
***
At a hearing in early December, a Social Security administrative judge told the Kellers that he would review their appeal of the original denial of benefits, a process that he said could take two months. Joseph Keller responded that he might not be around that long. Earlier this month, the judge sent the case back to the local office after it determined that the house was virtually worthless. Keller still has no benefits.
A Social Security Administration spokesperson declined to comment on the case.
"He's dying," says Keller's daughter, Barbara. "He needs his name off this house."
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)
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