City Vacate Order Due To Boiler Breakdown During Foreclosure Process Leads To Holiday Boot For Five Chicago Families; Sudden Pre-Foreclosure Eviction Disqualifies Victims From $10,600 In Relocation Assistance As Delinquent Landlord, Court-Appointed Receiver, 'Scrooge' Bankster Fail To Make Needed Repairs

From a recent post from Chicago, Illinois-based Metropolitan Tenants Organization:

• In a blatant attempt to beat the clock on Chicago’s Keep Chicago Renting Ordinance (KRCO), BMO Harris Bank has caused the eviction of five families from their homes in the 7200 block of South Lowe in Englewood just as they were preparing for the Holidays. The tenants unfortunately – and by no fault of their own – lived in a building being foreclosed on by BMO.
  
  When the boiler in the building went out, neither the bank nor the owner would step in to get it fixed. As a direct result of that decision, the City ordered the building vacated due to “dangerous and hazardous conditions.”
  
  By not acting on the repair work, BMO’s court-appointed Receiver, Steven Spinell, caused the building to become vacant before the foreclosure process was final, thereby preventing residents from qualifying for the $10,600 in relocation assistance they would be entitled to under the Keep Chicago Renting Ordinance (KCRO) – in effect, punishing the tenants for the financial woes of their landlord. The law was passed by the City Council at the height of the foreclosure crisis precisely to prevent such actions.
  
  John Bartlett, Executive Director of the Metropolitan Tenants Organization (MTO) reacted strongly to BMO’s actions saying, “This is an outrage. The law needs to be tightened and enforced to prevent such travesties.”

For more, see BMO Harris Bank skirts city foreclosure law, plays Scrooge in Englewood.