House 'Under Water'? Do Like the Banks Do and Just Walk Away

House 'Under Water'? Do Like the Banks Do and Just Walk Away

www.alternet.org

Banks aren't taking possession of houses after foreclosure, creating a "shadow inventory" that may derail the recovery.

Here's a terrible new twist to a housing meltdown tortured by too many of them. Banks are refusing to take possession of houses after the foreclosure process because of the prohibitive cost, from legal to maintenance fees, of being stuck with the same worthless mortgages with which they've saddled American homeowners.

(visit the link for the full news article)

..."jingle mail," for instance, industry-speak for homeowners who mail back their keys and purposefully walk away from lenders who have left them to drown underwater; that is, with homes whose market value is significantly below their mortgage debt.

It's a cute euphemism for such a [messed]-up state of affairs engineered by the financial industry, and its colluders in the government and media. Greased by a thoroughly unregulated over-the-counter derivatives market that is fast approaching $600 trillion (that is not a typo) and now under investigation for antitrust trading, Bank of America, J.P. Morgan Chase, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and other titans of Wall Street seized the opportunity to lock homeowners into unfair mortgages that could ruin their balance sheets, and the American economy, for good.

jungle mail sounds about right. i can not believe these bastards can get away with this.

first they intentionally screw over a huge segment of the country by giving out high risk loans, or sub-primes, even to people who were able to get prime loans, and then when the shtf they simply bail.

they bail on the debt they created for themselves and take OUR money to fill the holes and now they bail on their responsibility for the homes THEY OWN as they chose to default the sub-primers sinking in debt rather than refinance to keep them and the country afloat.

now we have to worry about another 'bubble' because these bastards are too [HONKING] greedy to take responsibility for their actions and our government is too complicit to do anything to their financial masters.

dear god i am pissed.

"There's class warfare, all right, but it's my class, the rich class, that's making war, and we're winning." -- Warren Buffett

"It is just bone stupid," the Center for Responsible Lending's Kathleen Day told AlterNet by phone. "Banks foreclose on families, kick them out of their houses, which puts even more people underwater. And then they walk away from those same houses. It's almost like a sitcom, but it's a situation tragedy."

Its [HONKING] sick is what it is.

The banks' reason is simple enough: They're not worth anything to them either. A sobering analysis from the Cleveland Plain Dealer calls those mortgages "toxic titles," but the problem is beyond terminology now.

so why not refinance these people into these homes in a secure fashion that helps re-establish some [HONKING] balance in the housing market not to mention providing homes to family that would otherwise be [HONKING] empty?

dear god these banks are the pinnacle of evil empire. [HONK] them!

In an enlightening piece, the Milwaukee-Wisconsin Journal Sentinel locally "found more than $400,000 in back taxes, fees and demolition costs owed on nearly three dozen properties that lenders foreclosed on in the past two years but didn't complete the process," with many more to come.

In other words, banks aren't just walking away from homeowners, after leading them through Kafkaesque foreclosure suits and pocketing fees for it. They're also walking away from their practically bankrupted cities, which are slowly swelling with abandoned, vandalized and otherwise-ruined properties, further depressing their already-broken local economies. But even though the disturbing and nearly impossible-to-trace practice has gone viral, it has nevertheless been ignored.

remember old vampire movies and the like when all the villagers gathered up, light some torches, grabbed the pitch forks and went for a stroll to say hi to their local count?

i'm done quoting this article, but know that i am only half way through it at this point, the absolute criminal activity of the banks is expanded upon more in this one, a good read all around if you like the taste of hate with your morning joe.

bottom line is these institutions no longer deserve our support. they ARE the evil empire. its long past time we found a new means of doing business.

me, i'm dropping wells fargo and moving my cash to the local Permaculture Credit Union

The Permaculture Credit Union pools the financial resources of people who believe in the ethics of Permaculture - care of the earth, care of people, and reinvestment of surplus for the betterment of both. We apply those resources to earth-friendly and socially responsible loans and investments.

The history of financial institutions is one of focus on the bottom line which results in overexploitation of the earth's resources. Now, an innovative new financial institution - Permaculture Credit Union - has been established to allow its members to share their excess with other members of like mind who would use it for sustainable projects and, at the same time, take care of the Earth.

i know, it's a bit crunchy (as in granola) but at least the granola takes away some of the flavor of the pure evil.



www.alternet.org
(visit the link for the full news article)

[edit on 19-8-2009 by Animal]

reply to post by Animal


Arizona just passed legislation that doesn't allow the home owner to walk away... they are still on the hook for the mortgage to the lender!

How is anyone to survive in such an environment? Perpetual, never ending debt, haunting you, even though you are not allowed to stay in your residence once they foreclose. This is what we have allowed the people, that work for us, supposedly, do to us.

Every incumbent must be removed in order to reestablish control of our lives.
And teach those that are removed that they HONKED with the wrong sheeple.

the veil is coming off our kennels. the slavery is becoming plain to see. our masters will not so easily let us go, we are not free, we are their tools.

oh my god, this whole thing has me absolutely FUMING.

pyrytyes (sp?) do you have a link to any information on this new legislation in AZ? i would love to look it over. thanks.

[edit on 19-8-2009 by Animal]

reply to post by Animal


Animal, no, sorry no link on hand, but I will get one ASAP.

The problem is, this was evident from the beginning to most people with common sense. Houses should never have to be financed, everybody, no matter what they make should be able to have a place to call home These banks made it almost impossible for anybody but the very rich to own homes in the first place, which is a horrible thing to do. I mean you have to have so much money down, immaculate credit(No credit doesn't count at all), and you have to be willing to sign over the rights to your soul. Housing markets were never fair, at least not since the 50's and banks knew it, the government knew it, the suckers didn't, so they suffer, me I knew it, could I have gotten buried under one of these loans sure, I didn't because I saw the whole picture. As well as my Hubby did. These greedy banks all knew they were fixing normal everyday workers up for a huge let down, they didn't care, they want a wedge between the very rich and the very poor, they want to annhilate the middle class and they are succeeding. All third world countries have the same system, Very rich, no middle class, and the poverty stricken. This is how they want our system to be. They beleive they are losing their rightful money to the middle class who they think should work for less money then we already make. And forget the minimum wage, they want to do away with that completely. They want us at their mercy for very evil reasons indeed, it's disgusting. Guess what? They are winning just like you quoted. The very wealthy are definately winning. But I don't know who they think will be buying their products and services when they win, as most americans won't be able to afford JACKS*****? The will only end up screwing themselves in the long run forgetting that without demand, well, there's no reason to manufacture anything.

Local Govt.s can change their tax laws on a county by county basis. If they do want to watch out for the citizen's, they can just change the rules.
If a house is owed back taxes, and has been forclosed on, they can just ramp up the timeline to less than 60 days to pay up or take it over.
Auction of the houses, collect future taxes and have the home lived in and taken care of. If it does not sell, a bull dozer and now an empty lot that helps the balance sheet of the county by having property that will sell in future.

Or something like that.

Originally posted by j2000
Auction of the houses, collect future taxes and have the home lived in and taken care of. If it does not sell, a bull dozer and now an empty lot that helps the balance sheet of the county by having property that will sell in future.

Or something like that.

1. your saying the town/city should claim rights to the homes?

2. they should 'sell' the homes? to who?

3. bulldoze them to make an empty lot? really? how the hell is that suppose to be 'good' for anyone in the long run?

you see, no one can buy homes at the moment. city's and towns cant afford to take them over as cities and towns are currently headed for bankruptcy. and demolishing resources that have been formed into a useful object simply to make room to build another useful object with MORE resources is only going to add to the COST of homes.

the answer is holding banks accountable for their actions and refusing to let them walk away from their OWN mess.

i can't walk away from my debts, why should it be any different for a bank?

Originally posted by Animal

Originally posted by j2000
Auction of the houses, collect future taxes and have the home lived in and taken care of. If it does not sell, a bull dozer and now an empty lot that helps the balance sheet of the county by having property that will sell in future.

Or something like that.

1. your saying the town/city should claim rights to the homes?

2. they should 'sell' the homes? to who?

3. bulldoze them to make an empty lot? really? how the hell is that suppose to be 'good' for anyone in the long run?

you see, no one can buy homes at the moment. city's and towns cant afford to take them over as cities and towns are currently headed for bankruptcy. and demolishing resources that have been formed into a useful object simply to make room to build another useful object with MORE resources is only going to add to the COST of homes.

the answer is holding banks accountable for their actions and refusing to let them walk away from their OWN mess.

i can't walk away from my debts, why should it be any different for a bank?

Agreed! However, there are still very wealthy people who can and are buying these homes when they are auctioned, no doubt to turn over a profit of some 300 percent above the cost it was to them. This is the problem, nobody should ever be able to inflate the value of homes which investors and bankers have been doing for the passed 70 years or so. This is why the only time I would ever buy a home, and probably be paying three times what it's worth, is if I had the cash in hand, never would I ever get involved with a mortgage company or bank. Because on top of the inflated prices they also add their greatly inflated mortgage rates. It's a giant mouse trap, specifically made to bury people in debt so that they're indentured to them for the rest of their lives and beyond.

reply to post by Animal


www.azleg.gov...

The bill was passed in June, 2009...not sure of the amended date.
This is the amended bill. Evidently, the wording has been change/ amended to protect the owner, if the residence was occpied by the owner in the six months previous. However, no protection for investor owned property.

Which means, I guess, that the owner can walk away, if he lived in it, and not be responsible for any deficiency.

At the moment I don't know whether to laugh or cry about my situation. My husband and I are on our 4th lawyer because most of the lawyers here are only interested in conveyancing work because they've made so much money from that. As someone else mentioned, there's wealthy ppl still willing to buy at bargain prices so lawyers here are still raking it in that way and just aren't interested in any other kind of legal work. We're at our wits end now and this new lawyer has told us we should just

"Ask if it is possible to sign a DACION EN PAGO. This means thatthe bank will buy your house for the existing pending mortgage."

Let me start at the beginning..... the house is my husbands and I also have my own mortgage on a small 2 bed apartment. The house became our family home but I kept the apartment which is rather lucky because our family of 5 (plus 2 dogs) have had to live in it for the past couple of years.

Only we're not really very lucky at all - the bank sold us a buildings insurance policy and we put in a claim when a storm brought the roof down in 2007. Insurance won't pay, we can't live in it as it stands and we haven't had the money to do the structural work required.

We've struggled to pay both mortgages (apartment should be rented out!) but fell behind with payments on the house (seemed logical to keep up with the place we're living in as priority). Anyway, we've saved enough to just about make the house habitable, spoke to local bank branch manager who agreed we could settle all the arrears by the end of August. We only had 1800 left to pay and when my husband went to pay it the manager told him the main branch had started legal action and we have to pay another 3000 now. If we pay that then we don't have the money to do all the work so we can move back in - we're stuffed.

We still think the insurance should've paid under the accidental damage part, for the building insurance and also most, if not all, the contents part. The bank sold us the policy to cover their charge yet they don't want to help us recover any money and now they're making it impossible for us to keep the house, just when we've caught up.

Total, total rip off and we just don't have a clue what to do. We don't want to give it back but may be forced too. We have struggled for nearly 2 years to keep paying and save the money we need for the work - we finally just about got it all together and they move the goal posts!

If they end up repossessing the house they will never cover the mortgage and we put down 30% cash deposit!! The house is derelict after 2 years without a roof. We will end up paying for the house forever and we can't even live in it. Lawyers aren't interested in trying to sort it out by getting the insurance to pay or the bank to lend us enough money to do the work. As I said, conveyancing work is easy money for them and that's all they're interested in.

I'm so upset that we're going to lose our family home - we've got 3 kids that lost virtually all their belongings when the roof came in cause it brought ceilings down with it and then continued to rain. We were away on holiday while it happened and our neighbours did their best to save what they could (lucky one of them had a key to feed our 2 cats). Anyway, the kids have been looking forwards to moving back 'home' and they were so happy a few weeks ago when we told them we finally had the money to pay the bank up to date and do all the renovation work - we even went for a meal to celebrate and now I've got to tell them it won't be happening. My eldest daughter leaves for Uni next year and I'm so upset that she hasn't had a home for nearly 2 years and it looks like she'll be leaving us without having a 'home' to come back to in the holidays.

I'm angry, I'm upset, I just wish someone would put some human factor into our position. We're not behind on the mortgage because we can't afford it - we're behind because the bank sold us a dodgy insurance policy!

You're right - it is criminal what the banks/mortgage companies are doing and it seems the majority of us are powerless to do anything except be at their mercy.

Originally posted by pyrytyes
reply to post by Animal

 

Arizona just passed legislation that doesn't allow the home owner to walk away... they are still on the hook for the mortgage to the lender!

How is anyone to survive in such an environment? Perpetual, never ending debt, haunting you, even though you are not allowed to stay in your residence once they foreclose. This is what we have allowed the people, that work for us, supposedly, do to us.

Every incumbent must be removed in order to reestablish control of our lives.
And teach those that are removed that they HONKED with the wrong sheeple.

This is not "totally" true. In AZ, if you live in the house for more than 6 months, then you are not held liable. It is to stop people from getting into a house and then leaving, and also, from dropping houses that they cannot rent out.

I'm not too clear on how your system works over there, and I don't completely understand a lot of the terminology. But, does anyone here really think that come winter, these properties will be left empty?

When a regions homeless (recently or otherwise) reaches a certain point, they'll have absolutely nothing to loose by taking over those properties.

This is what *should* happen...
Local and regional government should "sequester" such homes and keep them on record with the occupiers remaining. The financial aspect should remain on hold. Once financial stability has returned, law has to be evaluated again to resume the previous mortgage agreement on individual circumstances.
The safety and security of the citizens should always come first. It makes no economic sense to have thousands of families living on the streets or being arrested for remaining in their homes.

This is what *will likely* happen...
This will continue until you have millions of families across the country homeless, and millions of homes without occupiers.
Regional governments will be extremely slow to act.
It will reach a point where families illegally occupy properties and are arrested in large numbers.
There will be some ugly scenes, and eventually this information will be out there and people will start fighting back.

This is my opinion. It's probably already happening and it's just not being reported.

reply to post by Maya00a


This is NOT a legal opinion but, were I in that situation and I was getting squeezed in the manner you are, there would be a sudden lightning strike on that house at the next storm and then tell the insurance company that its all theirs! The insurance company is sitting on its hands because of the' Due Diligence ' clause in that policy you bought. If you don't fix they problem first and then sue the company they can then blame you for the problem and not pay. Your not alone. I have friends in the same boat and that's what they found as the reason for not getting any help from their policy they bought from a bank. They had to borrow from friends and family to fix damage before any help would be provided by the insurance company. After they did fix the damage, the insurance company would only pay 30% because they said they didn't fix the problem fast enough so there was more damage that was their fault!
Purely BS and greedy disingenuous business practice!

Zindo

[edit on 8/19/2009 by ZindoDoone]

reply to post by MarshMallow_Snake



The bill as originally passed made the owner, whether living in the house or not, responsible for any deficiencies. The amendment corrected that, so the owner occupier is not liable, and can walk away. However, if the owner doesn't live in the house, the owner ( as an investor) is liable for any deficiency, and must make up the difference.

A renter in that case would have to, probably, vacate before the residence was auctioned by the bank.

Its simple really. Create a legal will. Get all your legal, financial, and familial affairs in order. Create a new identity. Produce a certificate of death on the old identity. Then walk away. Also, if the old identity had life insurance, bang, you're in the money. Corporations do this all the time. Some get caught. Most don't.


PG